Indian football, on Friday, was rocked by further controversy when two players of Khad FC accused Deepak Sharma, the general secretary of Himachal Pradesh Football Association, of physical assault.
Palak Verma and Ritika Thakur were allegedly assaulted by Deepak in a drunken state, on Thursday night (March 28) in Goa. The players filed a complaint on the next day with the All India Football Federation (AIFF), requesting immediate action as they were ‘scared for their lives’.
Himachal Pradesh’s Khad FC is currently playing in the inaugural edition of Indian Women’s League 2. Palak has led the team in two of its three matches so far.
The complaint, whose copy Sportstar has read, says, “As the dinner was over, we were boiling eggs as we didn’t get dinner. Mr. Deepak Sharma got offended and stormed into our room and slapped me (Palak) and Ritika and assaulted us physically. From the first day, he used to be in an inebriated (drunken) state.”
Deepak is an executive committee member of the AIFF, the deputy chairperson of the competition committee and as per the federation’s website, he’s also the chairperson of the federation’s infrastructure committee.
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The incident became public on the morning of March 29 and the match commissioner, Sujesh Rajan, took cognizance of the issue and reached out to the Goa Football Association, the host federation, for quick action.
“In the morning, I got a call from the Match Commissioner saying that there was a complaint,” Jonathan D’Sousa, the vice president of GFA, told Sportstar.
“So, the General Secretary and the Match Commissioner went to the place where the girls were staying and they did a preliminary investigation. They forwarded their report to the AIFF.”
The GFA also filed a complaint at the Mapusa police station within hours.
“As an organizer and as part of the GFA, we felt that we should at least inform the police that so and so incident has happened. Now, the law has to follow this process,” Jonathan added.
Only male in the women’s contingent
Khad, placed in Group C in IWL 2, is playing its group-stage matches at the Duler Stadium in Mapusa. The team travelled from its home state to New Delhi before making it to Goa.
When it reached Goa, Deepak was the only male in the contingent, as confirmed by GFA’s secretary Adlear D’Cruz, who was one of the people to conduct the preliminary investigation.
Adlear said that the victims and the accused were separately questioned.
“He (had) started drinking right from the time they (started travelling) in the tempo traveller in Himachal Pradesh. He was drinking openly and was the only male in the vehicle and was fully drunk right from that day until then,” he told Sportstar.
“He assaulted both of them and three girls were witnesses. He just barged in the room and started assaulting them.”
The girls had also accused the team manager, Nandita Sharma, of ‘defending’ Deepak, who, Adlear said, was his wife.
“Deepak said he had not assaulted, he had only pulled the hand and he was never drunk. I said that you (Nandita) give in writing that the safety of the girls will be on you (till they reach home) because she had just come two days back,” Adlear added.
“Then, I took those five girls with the team manager (Nandita), Deepak, the team coach – a female coach – and Ruturaj, the goalkeeping coach. It was sorted that he would not go to them (the girls) and whatever message was to be given would go through the coach and vice-versa.”
Khad is scheduled to play City Bahadurgarh in its final match on Saturday, whose fate remains nebulous as 12 of Bahadurgarh’s players left for the Haryana State Senior Women’s Championship, leaving the team with just eight players.
Irrespective of the result, however, Khad is set to be eliminated in the group stage, with Tuem and SAG Football Academy qualifying from this group.
However, the two girls have requested a separate travel itinerary as they do not feel comfortable returning with the contingent. “The goalkeeping coach is supposed to make arrangements for their return (separately),” Adlear said.
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