<i>Turning a blind eye</i>

At the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna the Tigers roared to their second win against the West Indies on Sunday. And an elated sports minister of the country Ahad Ali Sarker immediately congratulated the Tigers and announced Taka 2 lakh cash award for young Anamul Haq for his brilliant century.
The cash incentive will certainly inspire other athletes of the country to perform better. But this might not be a case for some visually impaired athletes of the country who also played a game of cricket in Bangalore in a tournament called the first-ever T20 Blind Cricket World Cup. They lost the game badly against Nepal yesterday.
But despite the defeat they were the true victors on the day for at least holding the Red and Green flag high in an assembly of nine nations despite getting no support from the sports minister and an affluent Bangladesh Cricket Board.
Long before their trip to Bangalore where teams from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Australia, England, South Africa, West Indies and hosts India are taking part, the cash-strapped Bangladesh Blind Cricket Council (BBCC) submitted one application to the sports minister at his secretariat office and the another one to the BCB seeking financial support for their trip to India.
The Daily Star contacted the secretary of the National Sports Council (NSC) yesterday and the man in charge Shafiq Anwar confirmed that they had not received any such letter.
It may have been still lying with some bureaucrats in the secretariat or being buried under pile of files on the sports ministers' desk as an 'unimportant' file.
The application to the BCB tells an even funnier story. After frantic inquiry from The Daily Star, it was finally learnt that the BCB did not want to contribute in cash but agreed to provide 'playing kits' to the blind athletes.
But the disheartened visually impaired athletes had to leave Dhaka with their worn-out clothes because the promised kits never reached before their rough ride by bus to Kolkata as part of austerity measure.
They had to readjust their budget as they had only Tk 8.52 lakh, a generous contribution from their lone sponsor HSBC, to cover all their expenses.
It is a pity that the sports minister, who enjoys having a fund for destitute athletes and sports organisation, could not support perhaps the most desperate of athletes. The BCB also put their image into question for failing to support a cause for cricket.
Even in this age of equal human rights, physically challenged people are unfortunately considered as a burden to their families and the state. The above incident is a glaring example of how much challenge and neglect the physically challenged people have to endure in their strive for dignity.
These visually impaired athletes will return home after the event is over on December 13. And by that time many among us will tend to forget them. Then again, they may not and perhaps will not. The reason is simple and without ambiguity. These physically challenged individuals have shown that they have self esteem. For those who have sought to ignore them, the lesson should be obvious: it is impolite to undermine those less fortunate than many of us are.