-SATISH HANDA

Wrestlers from Haryana state earned name and fame for the country in national and international games. The names of wrestlers like Master Chandgi Ram, Arjun awardee Uday Chand, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sushil Kumar and female wrestler Geeta Phogat, Babita Phogat are famous not only in India but all over the world having number of medals for the country in the field of wrestling. There are hundreds of wrestlers in Haryana  bagged medals on wrestling grounds for a long time but remained unsuccessful to get identification in-spite of all efforts, even failed to get employments and their activities as well as fame remained restricted only up to ‘Akhadas’. There are still many talented wrestlers in the state jobless since a long time and some of them are involved in antisocial, criminal activities due to bad society.

Wrestling as well as wresters has deep relationship with discipline and the names of few ‘Akhadas’ like Master Chandgi Ram Akhada, Capt. Chandrup Akhada, Guru Hanuman Akhada, Mahabali Satpal Akhada at Delhi and many more in Haryana state are rare examples as regard maintaining discipline and not prepared to compromise for discipline at any cost, and large number of prominent wrestlers at present in the country were trained in these ‘Akhadas’ under strict discipline and were able to get identification at national and international level. The scenario have changed now after the incidents of few criminal activities reported in ‘Akhadas’ in recent past some time.

Among few criminal incidents tarnished the image of wrestling reported in past some time include killing of six persons including a coach Manoj Malik, his wife, his innocent child, a female wrestler practicing at the ‘Akhada’ and another two coach present at the wrestling ground of Jaat College Rohtak were shot dead by another coach Sukhwinder due to personal rift between two as a result not only six lives were lost but also wrestling suffered a lot in the state. There are few other incidents of killing reported on wrestling ‘Akhadas’ in past some time in which organiser of Suresh Akhada killed another wrester a winner of Hind Kesri title after a minor clash. Similarly, organiser of Ram Karan Akhada allegedly killed another known wrestler Sanjit Bindro resident of village Bahu Akbarpur which was a real challenge for the police to solve murder mystery.

Case of Olympic winner wrestler Sushil Kumar appearing on headlines in the newspapers at present is the recent case under investigation by the police in which the prime accuse wrestler beaten another wrestler Sagar Dhankhad along with his companions recently. Sushil Kumar lodged at Mandoli Jail having sleepless nights behind bars. When talked to a senior wrestling coach, he said a youth willing to adopt wrestling career have to face real challenge after involved in practice for a long time but in-spite of hard work most of the wrestlers have to face a bleak future unable to get a job and sometime unwillingly involve himself in criminal activities.