The Indian archers were in for a shock of their lifetime when their teammate Pratima Boro committed suicide at the Army Sports Training Centre in Pune on Friday. The Assamese archer was participating in the ongoing national camp.
The 22-year-old international was found hanging in her room. She had come for the routine morning practice session, but as Archery Association of India (AAI) secretary general, Anil Kamineni, told The Pioneer from Pune, “she participated in the exercises and then excused herself from the session saying that she was not feeling well.”
“After lunch, when her roommate went to the room she found the door locked from inside and got no response when she knocked repeatedly,” Kamineni, who visited the camp on Friday morning, said.
Pratima’s body had been sent for post mortem and would be flown to Guwahati for her family to perform the last rites.
“It’s a very unfortunate incident and we all are very sad. As soon as we found it out we asked our Assam unit to get in touch with the family. Even the family was shocked and surprised to hear the news. Even they couldn’t think of any incident that might have driven her to take this step,” he added.
Assam Archery Association president, Jayanta Boro, has meanwhile, asked the AAI, Army authorities and Sports Authority of India (SAI) to investigate the incident. Due to the AAI’s de-recognition by the Sports Ministry, the camp for the recurve archers was being held at the Army Centre and not SAI Centre.
“All of us are shocked. She had been her usual chirpy self. We didn’t notice anything amiss in her behaviour in these last couple of days,” said Olympian Dola Banerjee, who was also a part of the 12-member women’s team, which had been training in the camp. “She had been coming to all the morning (6 AM) practice sessions on time. We all archers here are like a family. She would talk to everyone. I can’t understand what made her take this step.”
Though there are suggestions of Pratima suffering from depression or absence of women wardens having lead to some foul play, Dola and Kamineni ruled out both.
“No chance of that,” said Kamineni of a possible harassment. “The Army facility here is well secured. No one can enter without proper check. Moreover, all senior archers, national and international coaches, are living in the same premises.
“She had just come back from home, some 10 days earlier and seemed alright to everyone. We still can’t understand what might have driven her to this.”
“She didn’t show any signs of depression or anything troubling her. She was behaving perfectly normal,” Dola said of Pratima, who had earned India a silver in 2008’s second Asian Grand Prix in Tehran.
A cadet at the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur, Pratima represented India in the 2009 World Cup Stage IV and World Championships before a dip in form saw her miss out on the teams for international events for last few years. She had joined Northeast Frontier Railway later and was one of the nine archers from the region who were selected to be a part of the national camp after their performance at the National Archery Championship in Raipur last month.
Telling The Pioneer about the atmosphere at the camp, Dola said, “I know her since her Academy days. We played so many tournaments together. No one had ever heard any complaint about her. All of us are so shocked to even discuss or talk about this among ourselves.”