Suicide row: SAI says ‘foul play’ not ruled out

New Delhi: Sports Authority of India does not rule out “foul play” in the incident involving four girl trainees at the SAI Center in Alapuzha in which one of them died.
SAI Director General Injeti Srinivas, who made a one-day visit to Kerala for an on spot “administrative” assessment after the shocking incident, said that he cannot pre-empt the investigative work of the police or the judicial process by commenting on the reasons of the suicide.
In a tragic turn of events, a young athlete Aparna Ramabhadran died and three of her colleagues were admitted to hospital under critical conditions after they ate a poison fruit under an apparent suicide pact following alleged harassment by their seniors at the Water Sports Centre of the SAI in Alapuzha.
“It is possible that there was some foul play. Something did happen. But would that lead to a situation to compel the young girls to take the extreme step of suicide, that law will decide. I had gone for an on spot administrative assessment on directives of Sports Minister. I will submit a report to the Sports Minister and he will take a call on what we need to do on our part,” Srinivas, who returned from Kerala, said at a press conference here.
“There was dying declaration, suicide pact, statement taken by the police from the surviving girls and other inmates of the SAI Center but how can I speak about the veracity of these things. These are not our job but of the law enforcement agencies. “This is a case where multiple agencies, including police and Human Right Commission are investigating. I cannot pre-empt these investigations and judicial process,” he added, pleading to report carefully on the sensitive issue.
Asked if there was harassment by the seniors as has been alleged which might have led to the suicide of the girls, Srinivas said, “I have enquired the SAI warden and spoken to the other inmates at the center but they did not say anything about it (alleged harassment by seniors.”
“I also visited the boys hostel and talked to the boys and they could not figure what could have gone wrong,” he added.
Srinivas also dismissed any notion of delay and deliberate negligence by authorities while taking the girls to the hospital.
Asked if there could have been issues of ragging at the hostel, he said, “It is difficult to talk about it. If you are talking about ragging in the legal sense, there are Acts to deal with it.” He admitted that there were no CCTV cameras at the hostel to tract any incidents like ragging.
He also said that the three girls who were admitted to the hospital have improved “substantially” but will have to be monitored for another three days to bring them out of trouble. (PTI)