(From Top) Chanu, Pratima and Sunaina

New Delhi: Sending out a strong message to dope offenders, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Wednesday imposed life bans on three top weightlifters ? Pratima Kumari, Sanamacha Chanu and S. Sunaina ? and national coach Pal Singh Sandhu.

The IOA also warned of handing out similar punishment to any athlete who tests positive in future.

?The decision to impose maximum punishment on the offenders was taken as the doping scandal has brought the nation to disrepute,? IOA president Suresh Kalmadi said on Wednesday.

Kalmadi announced that IOA will blacklist Belarussian coach Leonid Taranenko, who accompanied the weightlifters to the Athens Olympics. ?We will never use him again.?

He also said that IOA would urge the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) to take severe action against Taranenko.

While Pratima and Chanu tested positive during the Athens Olympics last month, Sunaina was caught during the Asian Weightlifting Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan in April.

The three incidents also prompted the IWF to impose a one-year ban on the Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI).

?The federation had a choice ? to face the ban or pay a fine of $ 50,000 but they have decided not to pay the fine and to clean up the system in the next one year,? Kalmadi said. He said in future if any athlete competing in meets like Olympics, Commonwealth and Asian Games tests positive, they would be banned for life immediately.

Kalmadi said the steps against the offenders followed the report submitted by the two-member committee, which looked into the doping controversy in Athens.

?The committee, comprising Brigadier (Retd) K.P. Singh Deo and Dr Manmohan Singh, said in its 50-page report that strict action should be taken against the weightlifters, doctors and technicians to ensure such incidents do not repeat in the future,? Kalmadi said, adding ?but we won?t be make the report public.?

The IOA president said it will soon take steps to set up a National Anti-Doping Authority (NADA) as per the world anti-doping agency?s norms and asked the government to sign the Copenhagen Declaration on anti-doping in sport.

?We urge the government to sign the declaration at the earliest. It must be signed immediately. Internationally, it would be held against us,? he said. (PTI)