A women's football team from West Bengal, invited to play exhibition matches with their Bangladesh counterparts, had to return home without playing the last game of their tour in the face of stiff opposition from religious fanatics.
A little-known religious group, known as Towhidi Janata, forced the cancellation of the match in Netrokona, a district north of Dhaka, saying "women playing football is degrading and obscene", The Daily Star reported on Thursday.
The newspaper said Towhidi Janata (devout persons) kicked-off its hate campaign on Tuesday, a day before the match, between the visiting team and Netrokona XI, and threatened to stage a sit-in outside the Netrokona ground if was not called off.
The panic-striken visitors, who arrived in Dhaka on January 18, rushed back to India via the Benapole border on Wednesday evening, the report said.
The paper quoted the Indian team leader, Shankar Das, as saying: "It is unfortunate that we have to leave Bangladesh earlier than expected. The girls were really scared now knowing the reason behind the cancellation of the match."
The visitors' first and second matches, on January 19 and January 21, in border district town Jessore and Dhaka respectively, passed off peacefully.
The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) had invited the Indian team to promote women's football in the country. The cancellation of the Netrokona match is sure to serve as a blow to the BFF's desperate bid to seek more FIFA assistance for the promotion of football in the country, the report said.
