Shortly before the game began earlier this month, the Islami Andolan Bangladesh group announced a protest rally against the event in Rangpur region, saying it was un-Islamic.

Fearing trouble, local police stepped in and the women's team members were asked to return to their home for their safety.

The women's football match was the third to be cancelled in northern Bangladesh in less than two weeks due to the objections of religious hardliners.

In the Dinajpur area, roughly 70km (43 miles) west of Rangpur, Islamists protesting against a game clashed with locals who supported it, leaving four people injured.

The Islamists insist that the match they stopped was against their religious values and say that they are determined to prevent any future football games.

"If women want to play football, they should cover their entire body, and they can play only in front of female spectators. Men cannot watch them play," Maulana Ashraf Ali, the leader of the Islami Andolan Bangladesh in the Taraganj area of Rangpur.

Mr Ashraf Ali also insisted that the group "definitely" want hard-line Islamic Sharia law in Bangladesh.

The cancellation of the women's football matches caused an uproar on social media, leading the authorities to reorganise one of them. They have also launched an investigation into the incidents but say the fear of radicalism is exaggerated.

"There is no truth in the allegations that the government is pandering to Islamists," Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to interim leader Muhammad Yunus, told.

 Mr Shafiqul Alam pointed out that hundreds of women's sports matches were held as part of a national youth festival in January, and that they were played across the country without any trouble.

Some people are not reassured. Samina Luthfa, assistant professor of sociology in the University of Dhaka, told the media the cancellation of the women's football matches was "definitely alarming".

"The women of Bangladesh will not stop playing football and will not stop from going to work or doing their things," she said, adding that "everyone will fight" efforts to remove women from public spaces.