Barely five days after women athletes in Bengaluru’s Kanteevara stadium were taken aback after seeing a note in their loo that asked them to masturbate before practice, the stadium is in the news again for all the wrong reasons.
V Narayan Swamy and Manuja Veerappa report for The Times of India that men had occupied the women's loo on Friday, which left the women athletes fuming.
The stadium has been let out for a three-day All-India EPF Athletics and Cultural Meet.
A woman athlete told TOI that she found men shaving in the ladies' restrooms when she walked into not one, but three restrooms meant for them.
“Especially after the incident where we found obscene messages, I was scared and ran out,” she said.
With the horror of the masturbation note still fresh in her mind, she decided to call it out. Upon questioning the men’s presence in the ladies’ loo, the woman athlete was reportedly told that there were no signboards to indicate so.
“That is when I realised signboards to the women's loos had been torn down... I found the third in the usual state. There was a stink of cigarettes and bidis,” she said. To top it all, she was told that the loo was “dirty anyway”.
Having found the officer in charge to be indifferent to her concern, she approached Anupam Agarwal, director of Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES), but was reportedly not given a chance to report the incident.
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