I am being treated like a joker in a circus, says athlete Pinki Pramanik

Kolkata, Nov 14 : Controversial athlete Pinki Pramanik, who has been declared a male by West Bengal police in its chargesheet before a court, has said, she was being treated like a joker in a circus. Pramanik told The Hindu that it was offensive when the police or an additional public prosecutor comments on her gender in public. “It is not for the police or an additional public prosecutor to make repeated remarks on my gender,” Pinki said a day after an additional public prosecutor claimed that she was a male.“There is a circus going on and I am being treated as a joker,” she said, adding that she felt that she was being treated as an “object of curiosity” because of the repeated references to her gender. “I find it difficult to come out of my home and walk on the roads,” she said. Ever since her arrest on June 14, after the woman she shared her home with accused her of rape, she has been harassed by the police, and now the remarks on her gender come as a “mental torture”, Pinki said. “All they [police] want is to finish me.” Pinki added that she was “ being cornered in such a manner that I am pushed into losing my self-esteem and [contemplating] taking my life.” “I also hear reports that the police is saying that all my medals will be taken away. Who are they to say so? The police has not awarded me those medals,” she said. Pinki said that she would approach the West Bengal Commission for Women. She claimed that despite approaching the court in September seeking reports of the medical investigations to ascertain her gender, she had not received them yet. The athlete underwent medical examination at two State-run hospitals after the allegations of rape surfaced.