SAI suspends officer for tampering with wrestling list

New Delhi: Taking a strong action against one of its key Project Officers, Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Friday suspended Satish Rana for allegedly tampering with an official document pertaining to Indian wrestling team`s tour to the USA.

Rana has been accused of manipulating the Annual Calendar of Training & Competition (ACTC) for the year 2013-14 after it was reported that the official allegedly tampered with the file, which contained the list of wrestlers and coaches for the Dave Schultz Memorial International tournament in Colorado Springs from January 30 to February 1. SAI has also initiated a detailed enquiry, ordered by the SAI Director General Jiji Thomson, against Rana, who was the Project Officer for wrestling. It was alleged that Rana, who was suspended with immediate effect, gained access to project files, which contained annual programme of the wrestlers, as approved by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and the sports body at the start of the year. He tampered with the original document that contained the names of seven wrestlers, and reproduced the page with names of 15 wrestlers, two coaches in place of one, besides including the names of two officials who were never a part of the original list. It has been learnt that the issue came to SAI`s notice when Thomson found the name of blacklisted coach Kripa Shankar on the tampered list. Further inquiry into the matter by senior SAI officials revealed that entire list had been fiddled with. In a related development, SAI also got a request from WFI to include the name of World Championship bronze medallist Bajrang Kumar to the original list of US-bound seven grapplers after FILA re-jigged the weight classes. Colarado Springs event will have eight weight classes. Bajrang`s name was not there in the original list and WFI requested the SAI to sanction his travel, boarding and lodging expenses for the fortnight long training-cum-competition programme to provide him a chance to compete against the world`s best under a new weight category, keeping Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Championships in mind.