New Delhi: Six Indian badminton players were denied the right to participate at the ongoing World University Games due to an apparent administrative failure to fill-up required paperwork from team officials.
Association of Indian Universities sent a team of 12 shuttlers to represent the country but only those six whose names were submitted in the managers’ meeting were allowed to compete.
Rohan Kumar, Darshan Pujari, Aditi Bhatt, Abhinash Mohanty, Viraj Kuvale, and Alisha Khan travelled all the way to Rhine-Ruhr, Germany, but were barred from participating as their names were absent from the squad list.
“This is not just mismanagement – it’s career sabotage. We demand answers, accountability, and that our voices be heard. We didn’t lose a match – we lost our right to even participate,” Khan wrote on Instagram.
“This isn’t just a mistake. It’s career sabotage by AIU and our team officials. We demand justice.”
The AIU are aware of the incident. “We have been informed about this and the matter is being investigated,” AIU secretary Dr Pankaj Mittal told PTI.
Reports suggest two AIU officials – BV Rao and Ajit Mohan – attended the meeting on July 16 and were supposed to declare which player would play in which categories of singles, doubles, and mixed, but failed to do their duty properly, submitting only six names.
Administrative lapse
After the colossal incompetency, the players are now being pacified by saying they would get opportunity to participate in individual events that begins on Tuesday.
The players were chosen after selection trials attended by over 210 players at Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in April but the process has also been questioned for ignoring deserving candidates.
Administrative goof-up also led to fines of 1000 euros per match as full names were printed instead of surnames in jerseys, which didn’t have the name of the country written properly.
Despite the handicap, Saneeth Dayanand, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, Devika Sihag, Tasnim Mir, Varshini Viswanath Sri, and Vaishnavi Khadkekar went onto to claim the mixed team bronze medal.
Bitter at the entire episode of being denied the chance to change their lives, the six who missed out at least hope they be issued a certificate of acknowledgment as team members for the sake of their career prospect.