How Rohingya Muslim Refugees In Delhi Are Fighting Prejudice Through Football

The CR Park Mela Ground in south Delhi is no Maracana, the sprawling mecca of world football. It will probably take you less than a few minutes to walk across the breadth of it. It has steel poles instead goalposts and the outfield is deceptively patchy. A slab of concrete, which doubles up as a stage for local functions, rests bang in the middle of the field.

ut Mohammad Salim’s eyes light up as he surveys the field. “I feel free every time I am on a football field,” says the 23-year-old.

In 2012, when Salim, a Rohingya Muslim refugee from Myanmar, walked all night from Maungdaw township to the Bangladesh border town of Teknaf, he had forgotten how to play football. “For years we were being persecuted in Myanmar. I had secured top grades in my high school but I was barred from attending college because I am a Rohingya Muslim. I was always good in sports, but my parents would ask me not to show off because they feared persecution,” says Salim, who now runs a laptop repairing shop in New Delhi’s Uttam Nagar.

Source: scoopwhoop