Coach the coaches
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 29, 2014 -

To say the least, it is really disturbing and obnoxious to the core. A professional coach molesting five young girl athletes inside the Sports Training Centre of Sports Authority of India, North East Regional Centre, Takyelpat is a complete let down of the sports fraternity of the State.

How the 50 year old coach took advantage of the young girls and their vulnerability is rather disgusting.

Strict discipline, good manner, benevolence and dedication are something expected from a professional coach. But the particular coach, by subjecting the girls to sexual harassment in rotation, let loose the beast inside him.

A professional coach looking at his young students with lustful eyes is a crime against humanity in itself. This is not the first time a coach physically or sexually assaulted their female students.

The entire State was shocked when 1998 Asian Games gold medalist Ngangom Dingku assaulted mercilessly three weightlifting students at SAI hostel No 1 within Khuman Lampak Sports Complex in the night of January 13 this year.

All the love and respect bestowed upon the ace boxer by the people of Manipur vanished into thin air after this bestial assault on the young girls.

This was rather tragic given the fact that even a road stretch leading to Khuman Lampak Sports Complex was named after him.

But the mindless act of mercilessly assaulting the girls reduced Dingku’s public image from people’s darling to a savage. Dingku’s case can be assumed as mindless outburst of anger.

Yet, such outburst and victimization of the young girls deserved outright condemnation and it exposed before the whole world the raw, untamed, uncontrolled animalistic instinct hidden inside the champion pugilist.

Compared to Dingku’s case, the recent case of sexual harassment of young, female athletes by a male coach, if the report was true, reflects a strong criminal tendency inherent in the accused. It was not any isolated case.

It was not just one girl or two but five girls who were sexually assaulted by the accused one after another. The accused cuts the figure of a sexual pervert, depravity and a habitual offender.

The report about sexual harassment inside the SAI sports complex is really disgusting. But what is hard to digest is the assertion of the training centre’s in-charge that the matter has been settled.

The matter has been settled because the accused has been transferred. This is simply outrageous.

The girls filed a written complaint to SAI authority, not to police but the SAI authority neither reported the matter to police nor took up any action on their own. Again, media persons were not allowed to meet the victims.

This is really fishy and mischievous. The response of the SAI-STC Takyelpat in-charge is suggestive of an attitude which says ‘sexual harassment’, if it is not rape, is OK.

Or it can be a case of being overly protective of the accused. Another reading is, the in-charge does not understand that condoning an accused amounts to abetting the accused in his/her criminal act.

Again, abetting a criminal act is more culpable than committing the crime itself. Both the physical assault case of January 2014 and the fresh sexual harassment case happened within SAI complexes and both the accused are employees of SAI.

Given these facts, the SAI authority at the highest level need to enquire into these reports, establish the facts and punish the guilty lest the vibrant sports movement of Manipur gets blighted.

This would be a too heavy price not only for Manipur but also for the whole country.

We fear, if some coaches of SAI need to be trained first on discipline, morality, behaviour, public manner et al, before they are assigned coaching duties.