Following the charges of sexual harassment by a woman national athlete and junior coach, Haryana Sports Minister Sandeep Singh resigned from his post on Sunday. He ‘handed over’ his portfolio to the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in wake of the allegations.
Few days ago, a women coach had filed a complaint against the Sports Minister accusing him of sexual harassment and molestation. In this series, Chandigarh police booked Haryana Sports Minister Sandeep Singh on charges of sexual harassment and wrongful confinement on the complaint of a woman coach here on Sunday. The FIR against Sandeep Singh, an Olympian and former Indian hockey team captain was registered at Chandigarh’s Sector 26 police station on Saturday night. In wake of the seriousness of the matter, the Chandigarh Police have set up a four-member SIT including DSP Palak Goyal to probe the allegation levelled by the women coach. Apart from this, the Haryana DGP PK Agarwal has formed a three member panel headed by Rohtak Range IG ADGO Mamta Singh to probe the allegations and complaint. The committee also includes IPS Sumer Partap Singh and Panchkula ACP Rajkumar Kaushik.
In reaction to this, the minister has rejected the allegations and termed them baseless saying that he is being framed and a conspiracy has been hatched against him in a bid to humiliate him and spoil his image. “I hope there will be a fair investigation into the false allegations levelled against me. I hand over the responsibility of the sports department to the Chief Minister until the report of the investigation comes out”, he added further.
Earlier, the woman, who is a junior athlete coach, held a press conference at the office of the opposition party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), wherein she alleged that the minister harassed her from February to November last year, by repeated messages on social media and had touched her inappropriately and also threatened her through messages.
During the press briefing, the alleged victim demanded that the Manohar Lal Khattar government immediately sack Sandeep Singh and set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter.
The complainant told news agency that she opened up about the incident to the public after her patience went off. “I am also a player, think how much patience I would have to tolerate such ill behaviour of this person from February till now,” the woman said, adding that she didn’t open up about the incident earlier as she was afraid of negative impact on the sports industry.