Gurugram: Haryana minister Sandeep Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment by a junior athletics coach, Monday approached a Chandigarh court for anticipatory bail.
According to the Chandigarh district court’s website, the first hearing for the application was held Tuesday. The case will now be heard on 13 September, the website shows.
The development comes three days after a video in which the woman accused the Haryana’s minister of state for printing and stationery of trying to rape her last year went viral.
In that interview, given to a YouTube channel called The Masla and retweeted by Congress leader Kumari Selja, the woman accused Sandeep Singh of having attempted to force himself on her on three occasions in 2022.
The interview was in response to the Chandigarh Police’s charge sheet, which the woman says she’s not satisfied with. The Chandigarh Police had submitted its charge sheet in the court on 25 August.
Advocate Deepanshu Bansal for the woman coach told ThePrint that she had already made the allegations she had made in her video in her statement before the magistrate’s court under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that there was “nothing new in them.”
ThePrint tried to reach Sandeep Singh via phone and WhatsApp for his response on the woman’s latest allegations. This report will be updated if and when he responds.
In her FIR lodged in December, the junior athletics coach had claimed that Singh, then the sports minister, had called her in July 2022 and tried to push himself on her. Soon after the complaint, Singh announced he was stepping aside from the sports ministry but would keep his printing portfolio.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, meanwhile, came to his minister’s defence, describing the woman’s allegations as absurd.
On 11 August, Haryana’s sports department suspended the coach without explicitly stating their reasons. The woman has accused them of trying to pressure her to withdraw the complaint.
Also Read: Haryana minister Sandeep Singh, hockey captain who inspired ‘Soorma’, booked for sexual harassment
Viral video
In the interview which has since gone viral, the woman claims she’s unsatisfied with the charges filed against the minister.
Singh has been charged with sections 354 (assault or use of criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 354B (assault or criminal force with intent to disrobe), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
In the video, the woman is purportedly telling the interviewer that it wasn’t a case of “chhedchhad (sexual harassment) but attempt to rape”.
She recounts three incidents from last year — in March, July and December.
“On the day of the incident (July), the minister called me to his official residence on the pretext of checking my documents,” she’s heard saying. “On reaching there, I asked one of his staffers about the location of the washroom. He took me to a washroom attached to a bedroom. The moment I came out, I found Sandeep Singh standing at the door in front of me.”
The minister then pulled her to a bed and tried to force himself on her, she claims in the video.
“He tried to take off my T-shirt and kiss me. I pleaded with him but he dragged me to the washroom, took off his lower and pulled me to him, bolting the door of the washroom.”
When she slapped him, he allegedly hit her back and told her “girls in sports are not virgins”.
“I started crying out aloud and threatened to hit my head against the wall. That’s when he got scared. He told me to stop crying, asked me to wash my face and leave,” she claims.
He had tried to pull a similar act with her in March 2022, she claimed. “But he apologised for that. I have given information of all these incidents to the police.”
She also claimed that the minister tried to emotionally blackmail and stalk her, even claiming that he loved her. “I clearly told him no means no. But he kept stalking me.”
When she kept resisting his advances, he began using his influence to get the staff at the stadium she trained in to harass her, she claimed. She allegedly went to his official residence in December to report the harassment she faced from the stadium staff.
“On 28 December, I went again to him but again he repeated all those things. Before lodging the FIR, I met the senior officers in the (sports) department as well as senior police officers, but nothing came of it,” she’s heard telling the interviewer in the video.
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja tweeted the interview on 2 September and demanded action.
मुख्यमंत्री @mlkhattar जी सुनिए इस बेटी की पीड़ा को, किस तरह से आपके मंत्री ने इसे Harass किया।
ये सुनने के बाद भी क्या आप यही कहेंगे, "इस्तीफा नही लिया जाएगा"? अगर ऐसा है तो आपसे ज्यादा संवेदनहीन कोई नहीं हो सकता और फिर आपको एक मिनट भी पद पर रहने का कोई हक नहीं है।
एक और बात… pic.twitter.com/YAwbAzhQr5
— Kumari Selja (@Kumari_Selja) September 2, 2023
The Congress leader was referring to Khattar’s repeated insistence that his government will not ask Sandeep Singh but kept the printing portfolio, to resign.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also Read: ‘No panga with minister’—Haryana woman sprinter’s lone battle against sexual harassment