For the last few days, athlete Hima Das’ coach Nipon Das has been in the eye of the storm. The coach was accused of sexual abuse by a female athlete who would train under him Guwahati. The coach refuted the allegations and also said that the woman should be punished if the claims turn out to be baseless. According to her, the abuse happened in May during her training. FIR about the same was filed by the local police and Nipon Das was interrogated.

Das said that the allegations of sexual abuse are false and the woman athlete should be punished if the claims were baseless. “If I am found guilty, I must be punished but if I am not found guilty then she should be punished,” said Nipon as per a report on news agency ANI. He further added, “I am clean and innocent. You can ask my students. The police told me to cooperate and I am doing that only. An inquiry is on,” said Das.

According to Nipon Das, made false charges as she could not book a berth for her in the Assam team for the National Inter-State Athletics Championships (June 26-29) held in Guwahati. “This woman athlete who runs 100m and 200m trains under me and she was always after me to get her into the Assam team. I could not do that because there are other girls who are better than her. She was not included in the state team in National Inter-State Championships and that is why she filed the complaint on false and fabricated grounds,” Nipon was quoted as saying by PTI from Guwahati.

“She could not produce any proof of her allegations. In the complaint, she said the incident happened on May 18 but she filed the complaint only on June 22. My assistant coach and some other athletes were also interrogated but all of them said they have not seen any such incident. It is all fabricated and false,” he added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 30, 2018 11:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).