Freestyle wrestling camp becomes a free for all

PATIALA, JULY 22: The stately campus of the National Institute of Sports (NIS) here has not seen anything like this. Two days ago, wrestle...

PATIALA, JULY 22: The stately campus of the National Institute of Sports (NIS) here has not seen anything like this. Two days ago, wrestlers attending a camp in preparation for the Asian Junior Freestyle Championship, to be held in Delhi next month, attacked each other, allegedly with knives and sticks. It left two wrestlers — both of whom have won international honours — in hospital, one with head injuries. The police have registered a case against six people, including three wrestlers.

It seems more than the debris of a rough-house session. The two injured wrestlers, Sandip Rathi and Anuj Chowdhary, have alleged that the attack was a fallout of a regional divide within the community and was aimed at preventing them from participating in the Delhi meet. The attackers, they said, included wrestlers from the same weight category.

In fact, the injured wrestlers — from Uttar Pradesh — have demanded that the camps for such important tournaments should be held at a neutral venue. The NIS, they said, was dominated by Punjabis. They’ve, in fact, said they won’t attend any camp here in future.

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Maha Singh Rao, coach at the Guru Hanuman Akhara in Delhi with which the two are associated, said their injuries would rule them out of wrestling for at least six months.

Sources say signs of tension were first visible on Wednesday morning, when a scuffle broke out between two groups of wrestlers while they were playing a friendly handball match. The coaches intervened to stop it from escalating.

That evening, however, when the camp was in progress, a 10-strong group, including some wrestlers, came in a jeep. They were reportedly armed with knives and hockey sticks. Rathi and Chowdhary suffered injuries and were admitted to Rajindra Hospital.

The Civil Lines police have registered a FIR against six people, including three wrestlers: Sajjanpal, Palwinder Singh Cheema and Sandip Dahia. No arrests have been reported, so far.

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Sources at the NIS said a committee had been set up to investigate into the incident and it would submit its report to the Wrestling Federation of India. G S Anand, NIS regional director, said it was an internal matter of the institute. NIS Executive Director B S Ahluwalia was not available for comments.

Rathi and Chowdhary have won several international honours. Rathi won the silver medal at the Junior Asian Wrestling Championship, held in Kazakhstan in 1998. He also picked up the gold at the recent Junior National Freestyle Championship, held in Bangalore in June. Chowdhary won gold at the SAF Games in Nepal this year and at the Mustaffa Gold Cup held in Kazakhstan.