Police in Bengaluru have booked Commonwealth Games gold medalist Lakshya Sen and a coach from his badminton academy after a person, who runs another academy in the city, accused the player of falsifying his age.
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The FIR, registered Thursday, came after a local court recently directed police to investigate the allegation against Sen, 21.
Besides Sen and his coach Vimal Kumar, police have named the player’s father, Dhirendra Sen, brother Chirag Sen, and mother Nirmala Sen in the FIR.
Sen, who hails from Uttarakhand, trains at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bengaluru. His father is a coach with the Sports Authority of India. Chirag Sen, too, is also a badminton player.
The complaint was filed by Nagaraja MG, who also runs a badminton academy in Bengaluru.
Nagaraja claimed that Kumar, who coaches at the Padukone Academy, colluded with Sen’s parents to forge a birth certificate in 2010 to allow him to participate in age-restricted tournaments. Sen now competes in the senior category.
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At the junior level, an overage player playing in a certain age category tournament gains a natural advantage against others. According to the Badminton World Federation (BWF), Lakshya is currently 21 years old with a birth date of August 16, 2001. Chirag, on the other hand, is shown as 24 with a birth date of July 22, 1998.
Lakshya was on Wednesday awarded the Arjuna at the Rashtrapati Bhavan for a stellar year on the court. He is currently the highest-ranked Indian men’s singles shuttler in the world at No 6.
