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Journalism of Courage
Sahil Ansari has spent more than half of his 19 years in the shadow of crime. He grew up in Karmatar, the heart of Jamtara’s infamous cybercrime network, under fear, scrutiny, and stigma. “We can’t live freely or move around openly in our village,” he says. “Step outside Jamtara, and people judge you for where you come from. Here, you are dealt a bad hand the moment you are born.”
Then, three years ago, Ansari found his escape — through hockey. He now plays as a defender and is on the cusp of making it to the Jharkhand team.
On November 7, Indian hockey turns 100. To mark the centenary, 1,400 games will be played simultaneously across more than 550 districts all over India. More than 36,000 players will descend on the traditional hockey hubs, from Coorg to Chandigarh. Buried in that list of venues is a surprise entry — Jamtara, a place known for scams, not sport.
For more than a decade, the unassuming district in Jharkhand has been India’s biggest cybercrime hub. With only mobile phones at their disposal, young men built an empire of deceit — draining strangers’ bank accounts one call at a time.
Sport in a structured manner didn’t exist professionally or as a pastime. But now, hockey has emerged not just as a career option, but also as a vehicle for reform.
Indians have been playing hockey — and winning at it — even before the country was born. Calcutta took the lead in 1885 with the formation of the first club; years later, came Bombay and Punjab, where the sport existed in the form of ‘Khido Khundi’ (cotton ball and twisted stick).
And though hockey got a formal structure in India in 1925, with the creation of the national federation, Jamtara woke up to the sport just three years ago.
Hari Om, the Jamtara hockey association president who set the ball rolling in 2022, started out on a very slippery turf. “The general masses here are so poor that they couldn’t afford the equipment. Even now, if you type ‘Jamtara’ in any search engine, all you will find is cybercrime. The district has earned a bad reputation. We want to change that,” he says.
Hari Om became the association’s president during the Covid pandemic. After restrictions eased, he, along with district secretary Bhaskar Chand and other like-minded people from Jamtara as well as the Jharkhand State Association, raised funds to buy hockey sticks and balls. “Until 2022, we didn’t have a single hockey stick in Jamtara,” Chand says. “Well, some people did have them — but as weapons.”
They started by securing 50 hockey sticks and persuading a Catholic priest at a convent school to lend them the grounds for training. Soon after, a government school followed suit, opening its gates too. Then, two coaches from the famous Naval Tata Hockey Academy in Jamshedpur travelled to Jamtara to teach the beginners the basics of the game.
This, Chand adds, was the easier part. The ‘most difficult task’, Hari Om and Chand say, was to convince children and their parents to play the sport. “It was very, very difficult. Jamtara is famous just for one thing… and you are surrounded by that all the time,” Chand says, referring to cybercrime. “To draw children out of that zone was extremely tough. We visited them at schools and met their parents, who were worried that their children would get injured if they played hockey and that would, in turn, impact their future.”
For months, they travelled through remote villages, urging girls and boys to give hockey a shot. When they finally held their first trials in 2022, Chand and Hari Om were stunned — around 350 players, aged 14 to 18, showed up. “We had to split it into morning and evening sessions — we only had 50 sticks and had to rush-order extra balls,” Chand recalls.
One scouting trip took the district hockey officials to the heart of the cybercrime universe, Karmatar.
“Sport ka naamo nishaan nahin hai wahan (there’s no trace of sport there),” Chand says. “Even young children, studying in Class 5 and 6, are involved in cybercrime.” The nondescript village has been on the police radar for years. In 2017, more than 100 phishing-related arrests were made in Karmatar and the police registered 80 cases between 2014 and 2017 against 330 residents.
Ansari, the 19-year-old hockey player, says the “level of surveillance in Karmatar is so high” that the authorities question anyone remotely associated with the criminals. “We can’t live freely. Which is why, my family was very protective of me. My father, grandfather, uncles, all work very hard to earn a living. And they ensured that I was not bothered by anti-social elements.”
As Chand began his hunt to find diamonds in the rough, he soon realised that the children — raised amid crime and chaos — needed more than hockey sticks. Before training began, district associations brought in psychologists and mental health experts to work with them.
“While talking to them, some children admitted that their family members were involved in cybercrime. Many of them even asked, iske alawa hum karein kya? That was their biggest question: if not this (crime), then what?” Chand says.
“They couldn’t see any other prospects. The psychologists made them understand that they can escape the life of crime and choose to play sport, channel their energy there and use it as a medium to get a stable, government job; that they could make an identity for themselves, for their village.”
Chand adds, “We also organised mental health sessions to address mobile addiction. Our team of doctors helped students cope with family pressures and peer issues. A few years ago, some had even attempted suicide, so therapists spoke to them and made them understand that it’s never too late to change course.”
What began as a reform effort in Karmatar soon turned into an obsession for some — like Ansari. “I didn’t know a single hockey player three years ago, and still don’t have any favourites,” says Ansari, now close to making the state team. “But the sport got me hooked, and my family is glad it’s keeping me on track.”
Chand says that every year, around four to five players from Karmatar are selected for a state-level training camp conducted by Hockey Jharkhand. “Those players learn from the experts and after returning, impart the lessons to other aspiring players in Karmatar. An ecosystem is being formed.”
Overall, the district association boasts of close to 250 players who “regularly play hockey”. Around 180 of them are women. “We have seen more enthusiasm among girls than boys,” Hari Om says. “Jharkhand has a history of producing good women players, including current India captain Salima Tete.”
Salima, the speedy attacker from Simdega who made a journey from the back of beyond to the front and centre of Indian hockey, is an inspiration for many in Jamtara. “When she runs… waah! What a sight it is,” says Divashi Hembram, 20, from Karmatar village who now plays for the state.
Unlike Salima, who was groomed by the late Pratima Barwa — one of India’s finest grassroots coaches — and played on neat artificial turf in Simdega, a nursery for women’s hockey, Divashi has played on the unkempt, pebble-laden grounds of Jamtara. Chand says they hope to secure enough funds in the coming years to build a dedicated hockey ground.
The lack of it, however, hasn’t stopped the likes of Divashi. “Until three years ago, there was zero hockey here,” she says. “Now, I can dream and hope that Jamtara can be famous for hockey.”
They know Jamtara’s problems won’t magically disappear by simply wielding a stick. “But hockey can at least add some purpose to the lives of the youngsters here,” Hari Om says. “And hopefully, that can give Jamtara a new identity.”
