Khandwa (Madhya Pradesh): The annual Vidhayak Cup cricket tournament has come into the news for the wrong reason after some of the players belonging to the minority community accused the organisers of not allowing them to participate in the tournament.
Led by advocate Sohail Tanveer, who claimed himself to be a cricketer visited the district collector, SP and Kotwali police station and submitted an application demanding to ban such tournaments as it could create a rift among players and people belonging to different faiths. On the other hand, tournament organisers rubbished all allegations levelled against them.
According to information from Tanveer and others, Khandwa MLA Devendra Verma organises a local cricket tournament from April 20 and this year and as many as 32 teams are featuring in the tournament. They accused that this year, organisers have decided not to let cricketers belonging to the minority community play.
'Organisers issued a diktat that no team will be allowed to play the tournament if they had any Muslim player,' Tanveer said.
Tanveer said this is the first time that players from the minority community have been banned from participating in the tournament and such incidents will make their life difficult. He accused the organisers of promoting tension among the players on the basis of religion.
Another player Mohammad Ikrar says that now other local cricket clubs will also not allow us to play. A conspiracy is being hatched against us, he claimed.
He demanded that the organisers of this tournament should be arrested and the tournament should be cancelled immediately.
Meanwhile, Kotwali police station-in-charge Baljit Singh Bisen said that this matter is not related to the police, so he wonít comment on it.
When contacted Dinesh Paliwal, the tournament coordinator rubbished all allegations levelled against him and against MLA Devendra Verma.
Paliwal said that tournament is being organised after a gap of four years and the present situation has nothing to do with the Khargone violence.
He said four-year back some of the players belonging to the minority community had created a ruckus and had disrupted the tournament after a few decisions went against them. They beat the opponent team members and also attacked the organisers and umpires. At that time, we had decided to take action against such unruly players. However, the tournament could not be organised for the next four years due to different reasons and Covid-19.
Paliwal added that earlier more than 100 teams from Khandwa and its adjoining rural areas participated in the tournament, but this year only 32 teams were allowed to participate and we had already got 32 entries from the Khandwa Assembly constituency and now some people are putting pressure on us to accommodate them and are trying to create a controversy.
On the other hand, BJP MLA Devendra Verma denied all the allegations in the case. He said that we have not banned anyone.
