Satinder

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In one of the surprising events in Indian wrestling, a wrestler was given a life ban after he assaulted a match referee for not giving a decision in his favour. Satender Malik who represents Services is the accused who faced a life ban from the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) after his misconduct during the Commonwealth Games trials in New Delhi.

The incident took place inside the KD Jadhav Hall at the IG Stadium in the national capital where trials for the Commonwealth Games are being held. Satender Malik was up against Air-Force wrestler Mohit in the 125kg final and was leading 3-0 till the last minute. However, with just 18 seconds left in the deciding bout, Mohit effected a ‘take down’ move and also pushed Satender out of the mat for another point.

The referee of the match Virender Malik, nonetheless, awarded just one point for the pushout and did not give two points for the ‘takedown’. Mohit then challenged the decision. Satyadev Malik, the jury for the bout, excused himself from the decision for the sake of impartiality since he belonged to the Mokhra village from where Satender also comes.

Resultantly, the decision was referred to senior referee Jagbir Singh who ruled the decision in the Air-Force wrestler and awarded him three points. And then Mohit was announced the winner on criteria since he had scored the last point of the bout. Seeing all this, Satender lost his cool and walked across to Mat A where the bout for 57kg was on between Ravi Dahiya and Aman, and started physically assaulting Jagbir Singh.

Satender first abused Jagbir and then slapped him, who lost his balance and fell to the ground. After a while, WFI officials managed to take Satender out and resumed the 57kg final bout. Notably, all of this was happening right before the eyes of WFI President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and hence, the federation decided to impose a life ban on the wrestler. "We have imposed a life ban on Satender Malik. The decision was taken by WFI President," WFI's assistant secretary Vinod Tomar told PTI.