Indian female athlete takes gender test: officials

KOLKATA (AFP) –

Police escort Indian athlete Pinki Pramanik (centre) to the Barasat District court in Barasat, north of Kolkata on June 15. Pramanik who won a gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games underwent a gender test after she was charged with raping her former lover, who alleged she is actually a man.

A female Indian athlete who won a gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games underwent a gender test on Tuesday after she was charged with raping her former lover, who alleged she is actually a man.

Pinki Pramanik, who retired in 2007, is in police custody in Kolkata after being arrested last week over allegations that she repeatedly raped her female live-in partner.

When Pramanik appeared in court to be charged with rape, the magistrate ordered a panel of experts to assess her gender.

“A seven-member medical board conducted a medical test on Pinki Pramanik at the Barasat hospital to determine her sex,” chief medical officer Sukanta Seal, who is on the board, told AFP on Tuesday.

Seal said the board also included two gynaecologists, two general doctors, a psychiatrist and a surgeon. He declined to say when results of the test would be released.

Pramanik has alleged her former partner brought the rape charges after the athlete refused to give her 300,000 rupees ($5,400).

Pramanik, 26, won a team gold in the 4x400m relay at the Asian Games and a silver for the same event in the 2006 Commonwealth Games before she stopped competing the following year.

She grew up as the daughter of a poor farmer in rural West Bengal state, about 140 miles (220 kilometres) from Kolkata and now works as a ticket inspector on the Indian railways.

Police said Pramanik, who had lived with her partner in Kolkata for several months, will stand trial for rape, criminal assault, cheating and criminal intimidation.

Gender controversies in sport are often caused by Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) when females have male physical characteristics or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), when someone is genetically male but their genitals may appear to be those of a female.