Five cricket clubs allege discrimination in MP's Khandwa; write to district collector, SP
India Today
Five cricket clubs alleged that they have been asked not to play in the tournament as their teams have Muslim players. However, the tournament organiser has denied the allegations.
Five cricket clubs have alleged that they are being refused to participate in the ongoing cricket tournament in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, as “some players in their teams are Muslims.” According to reports, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Devendra Sharma is one of the organisers of this tournament.
Yorkershire Cricket Club, RCC, KCC, Royal Cricket Club and Enjoy Cricket Club Cub have submitted a written complaint to the district collector and the district SP, mentioning that their teams are not being allowed to participate in the tournament because they have Muslim players.
Sohail Tanveer, who plays for the Yorkershire cricket club and is also an advocate, while talking to India Today said, “Our captain Naeed Ahmed had gone to the organisers to get the team registered for the tournament but he was asked to wait for three days saying some decision was pending. After three days, he was told that clubs having Muslim players were not being entertained. There are four other such clubs whose entries were rejected on similar grounds.”
However, Dinesh Paliwal, the organiser of the tournament, denied such discrimination. “This year, we have converted it into an open tournament and restricted the number of participating teams to 32. So entries of some teams were rejected because we had already reached the limit,”Paliwal said.
On being asked if there was any Muslim player in the selected 32 teams, Paliwal said, “I did not come across any Muslim player.”
Khandwa BJP MLA Devendra Verma, who is the patron of the tournament, was not available for comment.
The tournament is organised after a gap of three years. In the last tournament, a total of 110 teams participated. One each of 50 wards and 60 panchayats.
