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Police in Bengaluru have begun a probe into charges that Indian national hockey player Varun Kumar raped a woman when she was underage.
An officer said they are collecting evidence, scanning through call details and message and voice notes exchanged between him and the alleged victim.
The police will soon approach the 28-year-old, who is training with the national squad in Bhubaneswar for the upcoming FIH Pro League, to assist in the investigations.
“We are investigating the case and collecting the required evidence,” a senior police officer told the Press Trust of India. “Kumar is out of Karnataka, so we will be contacting him soon. We have not sent any team to the place where he is currently training. If he does not come, we will have to send our team there.”
There was speculation that Kumar, a 2022 Commonwealth Games silver-medallist, is on the run, but Hockey India rubbished the rumour.
“He is not absconding. He is in Bhubaneswar with the team,” a Hockey India source told PTI.
The woman, now 22 and living in Bengaluru, alleged that Kumar raped her several times over the past five years, promising her marriage.
She claimed that she was 17 when she met the player through Instagram in 2019, and he had sex with her during his coaching camp visits to the Bengaluru’s Sports Authority of India Centre.
A police report has been lodged against Kumar in Bengaluru. He has been booked under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and sections 376 (rape) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code by the Bengaluru Police.
In the report, the woman alleged that Kumar insisted on meeting her after they got in touch on Instagram, and she relented after some of his friends convinced her. The two eventually became friends and got into a relationship.
She also claimed that he took her to a hotel in Bengaluru’s Jayanagar in July 2019 and had sex with her despite being aware that she was underage.
She said she had resisted, but he promised to take their relationship a step further and marry her.
The woman also said he started distancing himself from her and stopped responding to her calls and messages after her father died last year.
But when she persisted on meeting him and raised the topic of marriage, he threatened to upload her photos on social media.
Kumar, who received the Arjuna award, India second-highest sporting honour in 2021, was recently promoted as a deputy superintendent of police by Punjab Police. The Himachal Pradesh native lives in Jalandhar, Punjab.
Punjab Sports and Youth Services Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer said on Wednesday: “Only the inquiry will reveal the truth, or the court will decide.
“The player will surely have a difficult time. There should be justice if someone has committed a mistake.”
Indo-Asian News Service
