Rape accused Table Tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh has been dropped from Ultimate Table Tennis draft 2018 and had been replaced by Twenty-five-year old Raj Mondal for the second season of Ultimate Table Tennis to be played in Pune, Delhi and Kolkata from June 14 to July 1.
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The verdict comes from the organizers of the franchise-based table tennis league on Monday, a couple of days after the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) decided to suspend the double Olympian paddler pending investigations into rape charges levelled by a 18 year-old girl in Kolkata against him.
Ghosh was also dropped from India’s Commonwealth Games squad, as he was booked under IPC sections for rape, criminal conspiracy, causing miscarriage without the woman’s consent and cheating in a complaint lodged by a 18-year-old at the Barasat women’s police station in North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal on 2nd March.
“Since UTT is recognised by TTFI, we accept their decision and have replaced Soumyajit Ghosh with Raj Mondal for the upcoming player draft scheduled in Mumbai on 28th March 2018. With the draft around the corner, the current circumstances do not allow us any time to wait for the decision of the court,” the organisers said in an official statement.
Raj Mondal, currently ranked sixth in the country and 1101 in th world, is a regular competitor on the domestic circuit. He has won two mixed doubles titles in the Senior National Championships and finished third in the singles of the last National Games.
(PTI Inputs)
