Kolkata, July 10 (IANS) A West Bengal court Tuesday granted bail to Asiad gold medallist Pinki Pramanik, who had been in custody since June 15 for alleged rape, the ex-athlete's counsel said, adding the judge had accepted the argument of her being incapable of committing the crime.
"Pinki was granted bail today by the court district judge North 24 Parganas on a personal bond of Rs.5,000," Tuhin Roy, the counsel, told IANS.
The district and sessions judge (North 24 Parganas) while granting bail to Pinki, based on her medical reports, held that she was physically incapable of committing rape, Roy said.
He said that the court accepted their argument that the petitioner women who had alleged that Pramanik had raped her, was in a live in relationship with the former athlete for nearly three years. So the relationship between the two was consensual in nature.
Pinki was granted bail on a personal bond of Rs.5,000 after being in custody for 25 days.
Meanwhile, the report of a chromosomal test to determine Pramanik's gender was submitted before the court by the SSKM Hospital. An 11-member medical board was constituted to conduct the tests.
A four-member team of West Bengal Commission for Women led by its chairperson Sunanda Mukherjee met the former athlete in the prison.
Keeping her in prison without any woman police personnel and referring to her as male in police records were instances of violation of her human rights, said Mukherjee.
Pramanik was arrested June 14 and remanded to 14 days' judicial custody by a court June 15 after the athlete's live-in partner, a divorcee and a mother of one, filed a police complaint accusing the athlete of being a male who repeatedly "raped and tortured" her.
Subsequent to the arrest, Pramanik was taken to a private nursing home for a medical check-up where the test reports claimed that the athlete was indeed a male.
Pramanik, however, claimed innocence and said it was a conspiracy.
Pramanik, who retired from athletics three years ago, won gold in the 4x400 metres relay at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha in Qatar. The runner was a silver medallist at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games the same year.
