Parents of five minor girls who were being trained by a Kerala Cricket Association coach have moved the High Court seeking a fair probe into the sexual abuse allegations against him. The coach was arrested last month on charges of sexually abusing a girl in 2019.
After his arrest came to light, five other girls have made similar allegations against the coach, who used to work at the district cricket academy in Thiruvananthapuram.
On Friday, the KCA recommended cancellation of his certification from the BCCI-affiliated National Cricket Academy and directed cricket associations across India against taking him on as coach.
In their petition before the Kerala HC, the parents alleged that others were also involved and the “involvement of mafia is suspected”.
“They have taken videos and photographs of the children and uploaded it on various websites for commercial purposes as certain websites are available for encouraging such illegalities against the children. It is suspected that the accused and his allies have taken nude photographs of the survivors with criminal intention to misuse it in the future,” the petition said.
The mother of a girl whose complaint led to the arrest under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act also recounted her daughter’s ordeal from 2019.
“She wanted to discontinue cricket practice and move to Bengaluru,” she wrote in the petition. “She had then expressed some abnormal behaviour, but the family did not understand the issue. Recently, she got frightened after seeing the coach again in Thiruvananthapuram. The girl then revealed what had happened in 2019, leading to registration of the case.”
Following his arrest on June 12, other girls and their parents came forward alleging similar sexual harassment during coaching sessions in 2020 and 2021, when the coach had allegedly clicked nude photographs of the girls under the guise of checking for their physical fitness.
KCA president Jayesh George claimed the association never shielded the coach and that the complaint only came to light last month.
“He had faced a similar case in 2022. Then, the association had kept him away from the job of coach. But a section of students and their parents wanted him back as coach and said the complaint emerged as part of issues related to selection. But the association was not ready to take him back,” he said, adding that a court eventually disposed of the case after students and parents supported the accused.
However, he admitted to a lapse on the part of the KCA, saying that it should have kept the coach away even after this acquittal. “We should have conducted an internal probe then,” he said.
Another parent told The Indian Express that the coach sexually harassed several girls over the years.
“After he wriggled out of the earlier POCSO case, he had shown the same tendencies. He used to take girls to a tournament in Tamil Nadu without any women staff or coach accompanying. A few parents withdrew their daughters (from coaching) in the last few months after they grew suspicious about his behaviour,” he alleged.
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