Rape allegation: Ghosh’s CWG in doubt
KOLKATA/SILIGURI: A day after the police registered a first information report (FIR) against him at the instance of his estranged girlfriend, Indian table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh accused the woman of extorting money from him, as doubts surfaced about his participation in the Commonwealth Games next month.
“For the past one year, she has been taking money from me. I have receipts for more than ~1 lakh that I have paid her,”ghosh said on the phone from Germany, where he is training before the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, which start on April 4.
“I also have the documents to prove that I have borne the expenditure of medical treatment of one of her relatives at a private hospital in Kolkata,”
On Wednesday, the Barasat police station in Kolkata registered an FIR against the 24-yearold Arjuna awardee on the basis of a complaint by the woman who claims to be a minor. (HT could not independently verify this).
Charges under sections of the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act were slapped against the player, police officers said on condition of anonymity.
Additional superintendent of police, Barasat, Abhijit Banerjee confirmed that an FIR had been registered against Ghosh and an investigation started, but declined to give details.
The case has thrown into doubt Ghosh’s participation in the Commonwealth Games.
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra said the IOA would take a call once it gets details of the case. “Someone told me (about the case). Normal protocol will be followed, normal rules will be followed,” Batra told reporters at a send-off function for India’s CWG contingent in New Delhi on Thursday.
The woman said her mother transferred the ownership of a plot of land in Simlagarh, in Hooghly district, to Ghosh to set up a table tennis academy. According to Bengali daily Ebela, the complainant said Ghosh had promised to marry her but backed out.“soumyajit promised to marry me and then got intimate with me a number of times. He even raped me once. He took me to an empty flat, where I was made senseless, and underwent an abortion,” the woman alleged to a local TV channel.
Ghosh admitted that they were supposed to get married. “I introduced her as my fiancee publicly after I received the Arjuna Award in 2016. But I got tired of her blackmailing me only for money,”he said.
On the transfer of the plot of land, Ghosh said the plot of land was jointly owned by him and the woman. “I repeatedly requested her mother, both verbally and through e-mails, not to include my name as a joint owner of the land. I don’t know why she did it.”
“I am in constant touch with my lawyer, who has told me I have nothing to worry,” Ghosh said.
The player’s father Harishankar Ghosh, who is an employee of Siliguri Municipal Corporation, said, “The two families enjoyed friendly relations, but for reasons not known to us, they broke off.”
“I have also heard that the girl took money from my son often,” Ghosh added.