Quartermiler Nirmala Sheoran gets 8-year ban for second doping violation
New Delhi, Feb 10: India's quartermiler Nirmala Sheoran has been handed an eight-year ban by National Anti-Doping Agency's (NADA) Disciplinary Panel after she returned positive for a banned substance in a test conducted last year.
The 28-year-old Sheoran had returned to competition during the National Inter-State Championships in June last year in Bhubaneswar after serving a four-year ban for a dope offence in 2018.
In an order passed by the NADA's Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel on December 27 and revealed only on Thursday, Sheoran has been banned for eight years, starting from August 7, 2023.
She had tested positive for "Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) and Testosterone (T)" according to the NADA website, which mentioned only her first name -- Nirmala.
Sheoran, the country's top quartermiler at one time, had won women's 400m gold in the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar. But a doping offence committed in 2018 resulted to her stripping of that gold as her results from August 2018 to November 2018 were struck off.
She also ran in the 2016 Rio Olympics in 400m and women's 4x400m relay.
"Yes, the athlete in question is Nirmala Sheoran. She (Nirmala in NADA website) is the same athlete (as Nirmala Sheoran). It's an out of competition test and her sample was taken in Jaipur," an athletics team source told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
This would mean that her sample which returned positive was not related to the National Inter-State Championships but collected later.
The eight-year ban will also mean that Sheoran's career will be as good as over, unless she gets a favourable decision on appeal, if at all she takes that route.
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Chhattisgarh: 3 Naxalites killed in Sukma encounter carried cumulative bounty of Rs 18 lakh
Raipur (PTI): Three Naxalites killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district a day ago were senior members carrying a cumulative bounty of Rs 18 lakh, police said on Friday.
An encounter broke out on the hill of Paliguda-Gundrajgudem in Sukma, where a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxalite operation on Thursday morning. Bodies of three Naxalites were recovered from the scene.
One of the slain Naxalities, Korsa Mahesh, was an expert in improvised explosive devices (IED) and was the alleged mastermind of violent incidents in 2023 and 2024 in Bedre (Bijapur) and Jagargunda (Sukma) areas, an official said.
Mahesh was active as deputy commander of Maoists' platoon no. 30 and carried a bounty of Rs 8 lakh, Sukma superintendent of police Kiran Chavan said.
He said the two others, Madvi Naveen and Avlam Bheema, were area committee members and carried a bounty of Rs 5 lakh each.
The official said two barrel grenade launchers (BGLs), a 12-bore rifle, three tiffin bombs, five BGL shells and a cache of explosives and Maoist-related items were recovered from the encounter site.
"Mahesh was an expert in making, planting and triggering IEDs. He was allegedly involved in several incidents, including the Naxal attack in December, 2023 near Bedre, in which CRPF sub-inspector Sudhakar Reddy was killed, and the IED blast on a truck in June last year in Jagargunda that killed two CRPF personnel," Chavan said.
According to the police, nine Naxalites have been killed in three encounters at separate places in the state so far this year.
