A horror story of sexual harassment of women cricketers – many of them minors – in Kerala has put the state’s cricket association in focus.
Coach M. Manu is in judicial custody under the POCSO (Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences) Act after six girls registered complaints against him to the police.
Tipping point
The tipping point came when Manu was appointed by the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) as one of the coaches for the Kerala Cricket League. A girl — who had been previously abused by him and who had moved to another state — was shocked to find that he had still been working as a coach, despite a police case against him for sexual harassment. He had been acquitted in that POCSO case after the survivor reportedly changed her statement. This time, the girl, who went for the KCA tournament, raised a complaint. Soon, many others came forward.
He had allegedly been exploiting girls for six years. That is why parents of the trainees are upset with the way the KCA has handled the issue. They feel Manu should not have been allowed to coach girls after complaints against him surfaced.
“Manu is a habitual offender and used his position as a coach to sexually assault minors,” a parent of one of the girls told Sportstar. “He was manipulating and grooming children all the time for his sexual desires. He exploited the children’s passion for the game and told them that they would have to cooperate with him to succeed.”
“When practice was going on at the nets at the KCA headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, he would take the victims to the gymnasium on the sly to perform lewd acts.
“The gym and rest room were the only places where there were no CCTV cameras and he pretty well knew that.
Under KCA’s protection
“The KCA is protecting him as he is connected with a cricket club owned by a KCA official. The KCA didn’t take any action against Manu despite the complaints. The KCA’s statement that it wasn’t aware of the issue until the police visited its premises for investigation is false.”
The association had been indeed under fire for not taking any action against the coach and its continued silence, even after the police arrested Manu for the POCSO offence.
At a press conference, KCA president Jayesh George and secretary Vinod S. Kumar denied that it was protecting the perpetrator and the association was cooperating with the Kerala police.
Unfairly targeted
Sportstar spoke to Vinod and he responded to the charges against him and the KCA, saying that the organisation is being unfairly targeted.
“The KCA became aware of the matter only after Kerala Police visited the KCA headquarters as part of their investigation,” Vinod said.
“The KCA appointed M. Manu only after he was exonerated by the Kerala High Court. When the police case was first registered against him, many parents had given a statement to the police that the complaint was a fabricated one and it was alleged that the complainant was acting in vengeance after failing at selection trials. We appointed him for the second time following many requests from parents,” he added.
The secretary added that Manu had resigned and had served his notice period but the KCA was forced to name him as a coach for the Pink tournament as none of the other qualified coaches were available.
“It was merely a stop-gap arrangement,” he said. “The allegation that KCA is protecting Manu because he is the coach of my club is baseless. He was never part of the coaching set-up of my club. It is true that he represented my club as a player for a while but also played for other clubs before he became a coach.
“It is a bid to tarnish me and these allegations are made by people with vested interests. These people have tried to derail the Kerala Cricket League by approaching the prospective bidders to withdraw from the auction and even contacted actor Mohanlal and asked him to stay away from the KCL.”
Vinod said the KCA had taken steps to avoid such incidents in future. “The association would have taken action if the survivor had approached us directly, but she contacted the Childline and the KCA came to know of it only after police visited the premises for gathering evidence,” he said.
“The earlier complaint was instigated by people who want to destroy the KCA.”
Vinod said a woman coach had been assigned to assist Manu. “Surveillance cameras were replaced with high resolution ones and the entire area came under surveillance,” he said. “However, the cameras couldn’t be installed inside the gym and toilets for obvious reasons. We had also made it mandatory for parents to be present at the premises during training.”
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