James Sangma urges BCCI to strengthen safeguards for women
Shillong, June 28: The Meghalaya Cricket Association (MCA) has dismissed services of three persons on charges of sexual harassment and negligence in handling complaints by women cricketers.
The action was taken against the head coach and assistant manager of MCA’s under-23 women’s team and its honorary secretary following Meghalaya State Commission for Women (MSCW) found them guilty of the charges.
MCA president James PK Sangma, in a strongly worded letter to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), termed the incident as a “deeply disturbing” example of abuse of authority over young women players.
Sangma also sought national-level intervention to strengthen safeguards for women cricketers.
The women cricket team members lodged complaints in December 2025, accusing the then head coach Hemant Roy and assistant manager Sanjay Mondal of sexual harassment during a tournament in Agartala.
As per inquiry conducted by MSCW, Roy subjected women players to repeated suggestive comments on their bodies and appearance, used vulgar language during team meetings and engaged in targeted harassment and intimidation.
Mondal, meanwhile, was found to have physically assaulted a woman cricketer in his hotel room in Agartala, a charge that he reportedly admitted before the commission, attributing his conduct to intoxication—a defence rejected by the panel.
The commission also pulled up former MCA office-bearers, particularly honorary secretary Rayonald Kharkamni, for failing to act on the complaints and suppressing action on the matter.
In his letter to BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia, Sangma said the complaints “drifted” in the association’s inbox for months without action.
“A young woman cricketer was physically assaulted in a hotel room by the man entrusted with managing her team. The Head Coach made comments about the bodies of the players he was supposed to be developing. And when complaints were eventually filed, there were attempts to intimidate the complainants into silence,” he wrote.
Invoking his emergency powers under the MCA constitution, Sangma ordered the immediate dismissal and permanent debarment of Roy and Mondal from all roles within the association.
Kharkamni has been suspended pending disciplinary proceedings and issued a show-cause notice.
The MCA president also alleged that despite agreeing to the appointment of retired Justice B.D. Agarwal as Ombudsman, Kharkamni had “systematically tried to suppress” the office, leaving the association without an effective grievance redressal mechanism mandated by the reforms recommended by the Lodha Committee.
“What the MSCW’s findings reveal is a pattern that is, regrettably, not unique to Meghalaya—individuals entrusted with positions of administrative and technical authority over young women cricketers exploiting those positions for personal gratification and institutional self-protection,” Sangma said.
Seeking BCCI’s intervention, the MCA has requested the national body to record the findings, consider barring the accused from all BCCI-affiliated activities and assist Meghalaya in implementing institutional reforms, including constituting a compliant Internal Committee under the POSH Act and adopting formal anti-sexual harassment policies.
“The women cricketers of Meghalaya deserve the full weight of this institution’s protection,” Sangma wrote, urging the BCCI to ensure that such incidents are never repeated in Indian cricket.
