Indian female athlete charged with raping woman; medical report claims she is actually a MAN

Indian authorities investigating a rape case say a sprinter who won a women's relay gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games is actually a man.  Police charged Pinki Pramanik on Monday with raping and assaulting a woman she was living with in the eastern state of West Bengal.

The woman alleged Pramanik was a man who had reneged on a promise to marry her.
Indian authorities said an eight-member medical board submitted a gender test along with the charge sheet that concluded Pramanik was genetically male.

Pramanik has denied the charges, calling them a 'huge conspiracy'.  She said that, contrary to the police claims, the medical report concluded that she was incapable of committing rape, New Delhi Television reported.

Pramanik said that the medical board told her that she had 'symptoms of excess male hormones as after-effect of some of the drugs I had taken during my sports career.'
The row bears some resemblance to the one that surrounded woman's 800m world champion Caster Semenya, who was forced out of competition for nearly a year after she was accused of being man.

Pramanik also said that she hadn't been given a copy of the medical report.  The former middle-distance runner, who won the 4x400 m relay gold in 2006 Doha Asian Games, was arrested on June 14 after her partner's complaint.

She was freed on bail in July after spending more than 20 days in jail.  Pinki's earlier gender tests were inconclusive both at a private nursing home at Barasat and at the Barasat General Hospital.

'The case was referred to the state-run SSKM hospital, but facility for chromosome pattern test was unavailable there too.  'Later, the test was concluded in Hyderabad,' police said.
The athlete's arrest and imprisonment earlier sparked an outcry across the state over gender discrimination and the manner in which the tests were conducted.

The Calcutta High Court ordered a probe into the alleged violation of Pinki's rights, while asking the state government to file an affidavit against the allegations of rights violation within two weeks.

Besides her 4x400m relay gold at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, Pinki also won a gold each at the 2005 Asian Indoor Games in Pattaya and the 2006 South Asian Games in Colombo.
Another Indian medalist at the 2006 Asian Games, Santhi Soundarajan, was stripped of the women's 800 meters silver medal after failing a gender test shortly after the games.


/dailymail.co.uk/