Commonwealth Games gold medal winning weightlifter K. Sanjita Chanu’s family and eight organisations from Manipur have urged Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi to set up a mechanism to conduct a high-level enquiry into her doping case.
The memorandum from a Joint Action Committee to the Prime Minister, routed through the Manipur Chief Minister’s office, has demanded ‘justice’ for Sanjita, who has been provisionally suspended for testing positive for an anabolic steroid in an out-of-competition prior to the World championship in the USA in November.
The memorandum alleged that the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWLF) “tries to silence her voice, refuses to cooperate and threatens her, including threats to terminate her job with the Indian Railways.”
It said, “IWLF officials forged Sanjita’ signature, illegally extracts her Gmail password from her and communicates with International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) without her prior consent, including requesting a re-test of her urine Sample B.”
“She’s an unfortunate victim of either the incompetency or, worst, a larger conspiracy concocted by the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWLF).”
The memorandum also requested the Prime Minister to “put pressure on IWF/United States of America Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to conduct a DNA test to confirm those two samples are not Sanjita’s.”
IWLF Secretary Sahdev Yadav said the allegations against the National federation were “baseless.”
“Whenever an athlete fails a dope test, he/she has to go through a certain procedure laid down by the WADA Code. We cannot assist or defend an athlete who has failed a dope test,” said Yadav.
“All these allegations against IWLF are baseless.”
Interestingly, IWLF had strongly backed Sanjita when the news about her positive test hit the headlines about a month ago.
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