Power play, property, ego in chargesheet against wrestler Sushil Kumar

Olympic medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar allegedly felt that his authority was undermined by the victim, also a wrestler,  and nursed a ‘deep grudge for loss of respect‘ in the eyes of his students. The statement is part of the 1000-page chargesheet filed by Delhi Police in the murder of 27-year-old junior wrestler, Sagar Dhankar, at Delhi’s Chhatrasal Stadium in May.

The chargesheet also accuses Sushil Kumar of planning and conspiring to attack Dhankar and that he called associates from Delhi and Haryana with firearms. Such was their rage that they beat up the wrestler for 30-40 minutes before the police arrived.

The ego clash

The chargesheet says, “Sushil Kumar was considered a guru by all wrestlers getting training in Chhatrasal Stadium but murmurs that he was scared of the two tenants occupying his wife’s flat made him feel  betrayed and, thus, he nursed a deep grudge for loss of respect in the eyes of his students”, reports the Indian Express.

The background

According to the chargesheet, Kumar bought a flat in 2019 in Delhi’ Model town in the name of his wife and rented it out to Dhankar and one Bhagat. Two-and-a-half months later, the two men got into a parking dispute with locals and Sushil asked them to vacate. Kumar sent two men to have the house vacated. He came back with the message that Kumar must come himself.

“Sushil Kumar is an Olympian, and he was well known and respected in the country. This act on the part of Sonu and Sagar was taken by him as a challenge to his authority and hurt his ego badly. He felt a loss of respect,” the chargesheet states, the report adds.

While a compromise was reached in 2021, bitterness persisted. “Tensions rose as there were murmurs in the stadium that Sushil… despite being such a big wrestler/name, was scared of Sagar and his associates,” the report adds.

Kumar started planning to teach them a lesson and “re-establish his supremacy,” chargesheet adds.

“Beaten for 40 minutes”

Dhankar and his four friends were allegedly assaulted by Kumar and others at the stadium on the intervening night of May 4 and 5 over a property dispute. Dhankar succumbed to injuries later.

Police investigation showed that Sagar and his friends were abducted from two different locations in Delhi and brought to the stadium, following which its gate was locked from inside, and the security guards were asked to leave. 

 “At the stadium, all the victims were confined and beaten mercilessly by all the accused. All the victims were beaten for around 30-40 minutes with ‘lathi’, ‘dandas’, hockey, baseball bat, etc,” the police said in the chargesheet, reports PTI.  

One of the victims managed to escape from the spot and made a call to the police, following which the local Police and PCR van staff reached the stadium.  “As the accused listened to the voice of the police siren, they took the deceased Sagar and injured Sonu to the basement of the stadium. Accused persons left both the victims injured there and ran away from the spot,” the probe reveals.  

According to the postmortem report, the cause of Dhankar’s death was “cerebral damage resulting from blunt object impact”.