KARACHI: Pakistan's spin maestro Saeed Ajmal is in England playing county cricket to regain his lost rhythm with a remodeled action, but along with it the 37-year-old spinner is putting in special efforts to raise funds for displaced Rohingya refugees.

A fund-raising event for the Rohingya refugees was held in Manchester on Saturday, where Ajmal, who is playing for Worcestershire, was invited as the chief guest.

Read: Pakistan to provide $5m food grant to Rohingya camps

Saj Sadiq, editor of cricket portal PakPassion, who was present at the event, tweeted: “With the support [and] efforts of Saeed Ajmal, £30,000 was raised yesterday at the charity event for Rohingya refugees.”

In recent years, sectarian violence and a thicket of discriminatory laws against the Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have sparked the region’s largest exodus of boat-people since the Vietnam War.

Read: In Asian seas, Rohingya migrants have nowhere to land

According to the United Nations, more than 25,000 people, including many Rohingya but also economic migrants from Bangladesh, made the dangerous sea journey south from the Bay of Bengal between January and March this year.

An estimated 1.3 million Rohingya scratch out an existence in Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest states — tens of thousands are trapped in displacement camps, with conditions outside often worse.