From left: Sasthi Duley, Jyotirmoyee Sikdar and Dipankar Roy: The tainted trio

Calcutta, Nov. 23: Pinki Pramanik, the athlete who was caught with a pistol in her kit in Nadia, should have been limbering up today at a national camp for an international event.

Instead, she was found at the wrong place ? like several other sportspersons of Bengal of late.

If Pinki?s brush with the gun ? it is not yet established conclusively how she came across the weapon ? landed her in trouble, footballers Sasthi Duley and Dipankar Roy found themselves on shaky ground because of their alleged association with gangster hatkata Dilip.

Dilip, one of Bengal?s most-wanted criminals, was found at Duley?s house at Haripal, Hooghly. Dipankar had allegedly introduced him to the Duleys. The East Bengal footballers spent days behind bars before securing bail.

Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, Bengal?s golden girl at the 1998 Bangkok Asiad, was embroiled in controversy following allegations of her former athlete husband?s links with criminals and a sleaze racket. Now a CPM MP, she tried to distance herself from Avtar Singh?s arrest but her reputation suffered a blow.

Pinki could also have been a ?golden girl?. Coming from a once-poor family at Dihigram in Manbhum, Purulia, she had a meteoric rise to stardom on the tracks.

Last year, at the junior Asian Track and Field Meet in Manila, she won gold with the Indian 1,600 m relay team. Set against the backdrop of the fact that she was ?discovered? by state athletics officials only in 2002 from an inter-district meet at Chinsurah, Hooghly, her career graph can only be termed fantastic.

?She is a born athlete, a born talent,? said Debashis Banerjee, the secretary of the state athletics body. ?It is hard to believe her performance on limited training in such a short time.?

In 2002, at the junior (under-18) state meet, she participated for Purulia and flew to four state records, an incredible effort for a first-timer.

Charmed by her talent, Forward Bloc MP Bir Singh Mahato had offered help. Invoking special powers because she is below 18, Eastern Railway gave Pinki a job, which helped the family claw its way out of poverty.

Today, she was supposed to be at a national camp that could have been her stepping stone to the bigger international arena, the Youth Commonwealth Athletics meet.

The national athletics body had Pinki in focus for the upcoming Asian Games (in Doha), the Beijing Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Returning from the inter-zonals in Meerut in October, Pinki?s bag was stolen from the train. The passport was gone as well. She was to make a fresh application for a duplicate because the foreign trips were knocking on the door.

Then she went missing. ?We just could not get in touch with her,? said an athletics official.

Attempts to get her back to the camp proved futile. A source said: ?It?s a situation that could have been avoided had her parents understood where she could be.?