SAI athletes stable, min sets up medical board

The three young women athletes, who survived a suicide bid after alleged harassment by seniors at the SAI Centre in Kerala, are stable now, even as a medical board was constituted by the Sports Ministry to investigate the incident.

“We have constituted a medical board (for the inquiry into the incident) and our priority is to save the lives of those athletes (girls),” Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said  in Delhi.

In a tragic turn of events, a athlete Aparna Ramabhadran died and three of her colleagues were battling for life, after they comsumed a poisonous fruit under an apparent suicide pact, following alleged harassment by seniors at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Kerala. All four were undergoing training at the Water Sports Centre of the SAI in Alapuzha.

A stunned Sports Ministry swung into action by ordering an inquiry and directing SAI Director General Injeti Srinivas to rush to Kerala for an on the spot assessment.

Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who visited the girls at the hospital, promised an unbiased probe.

Alapuzha Medical college Hospital superintendent Santosh Raghavan said that the three girls continue to be critical, but their condition had stabilised. However, there is no specific antidote for the poison they consumed.