National shooting coach Ankush Bharadwaj has been booked by Haryana police for allegedly sexually assaulting a 17-year-old national-level female shooter at a hotel in Faridabad.
NRAI (National Rifles Association of India) confirmed that an FIR has been filed against Bhardwaj in Faridabad."NRAI has suspended him and we will issue a show-cause notice," NRAI secretary Rajiv Bhatia told PTI.
“He has been suspended on moral grounds. Now, he has to prove himself innocent. Till the inquiry is not completed, he will not be associated with any coaching activity,” he added.
The complaint stated that Bharadwaj allegedly assaulted the shooter in a hotel room in Faridabad under the pretext of evaluating her performance.
The girl, who has been training with Bhardwaj since August last year, stated that she was left traumatised by the incident and spoke up in front of her mother on January 1 after being persistently probed.
When the teenager resisted, the coach allegedly threatened to destroy her career if she spoke out.
"The coach asked me to come to the elevator area. After that, when I went to the elevator area, coach sir told me that he had booked a room here, so come to my room. I will discuss the match with you there.
"He took me to a room on the third floor, and discussed the match. After sometime, I said to sir that I wanted to go home, but he told me that he would crack my back," she said, referring to a physiotherapy technique of post-competition recovery.
"I immediately refused. Then sir forcibly made me lie face down and sexually assaulted me and when I opposed, he threatened me," the victim stated in the FIR.
"He threatened me not to disclose the incident or else he would sabotage my professional career. I got really scared after the incident and did not tell anyone," she stated, adding that she eventually told her mother after she repeatedly asked her on noticing change in her demeanour following the incident.
Based on the complaint, police registered a case at the Women’s Police Station, NIT Faridabad, under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Section 351(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as the athlete was a minor at the time of the alleged incident.
Ankush Bharadwaj won gold in the 50-metre pistol shooting event in the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games.
Bharadwaj had served a doping ban in 2010 for the use of a beta-blocker during his competitive days. He had then said he had taken medicine for a mild headache and that he was not aware of its effect on the test result.