Nipon, the coach, had come into the limelight after he spotted Hima and trained her to glory. But now he faces allegations of sexual assault
Indian track and field sensation Hima Das's coach Nipon Das has been accused of sexual assault by an athlete who had trained under him in Guwahati.
Nipon had come in the limelight after he spotted Hima and trained her to glory at the IAAF World U-20 Athletics Championships in Tampere, Finland earlier this month. The woman athlete who accused Nipon said in her police complaint on 22 June that the coach had sexually assaulted her in the middle of May. The local police filed an FIR on the complaint of the woman and interrogated Nipon.
Nipon termed the charges as false and fabricated. According to him, the athlete in question, who is believed to be around 20-years-old, had failed to make it to the Assam team for the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Guwahati, and the accusation is a result of her frustration.
"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 told 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 had not seen any such incident. It is all fabricated and false," he added.
He said police investigation was going on and that he is confident of coming out clean.
"I have not been arrested by police so far. I had been taken to the police station once, and I was interrogated, that is all. If I am guilty and have committed some offence I should be punished, and I am ready for that, but here I have not done anything wrong," he said.
It was Nipon, who works with the state directorate of sports and youth welfare, who spotted Hima during an inter-district meet late in 2016. He asked her to shift to Guwahati, 150 km from her village near Dhing in Nagaon district, and convinced the youngster that she had a future in athletics.
Nipon also had his share of the spotlight in Assam after Hima won a gold medal in the 400m race at the World Junior Championships earlier this month.
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