Why Mankhurd girls have stopped playing football: Blame the neighbourhood boys https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/why-mankhurd-girls-have-stopped-playing-football-101718737103583.html ByJyoti Punwani Jun 19, 2024

Shabnam is a licensed football coach. ...On May 31, when she was coaching her regular batch of around 40 children, most of them girls, Shabnam was hit on the chest and nose by a tennis ball aimed at her by boys playing cricket nearby.  the boys who targeted Shabnam continue to play there, despite Shabnam filing a police complaint against them.

“Boys cannot tolerate the sight of girls playing with abandon,” said Sabah Khan, founder of Parcham, the feminist group that started the unusual initiative of girls playing football in the Muslim-dominated suburb of Mumbra in 2012. That initiative has now spread to Mandala in Mankhurd, Bandra and Jogeshwari....Farhat Jahan Ali, convenor of Parcham, is determined to see the May 31 incident to its logical end. Not only did the police not respond immediately though Shabnam was bleeding after the ball hit her, but they did not even take her to hospital, she said. Also, they did not record Shabnam’s statement in hospital correctly, she alleged.