Cops driving me to suicide: Pinki Pramanik

Pinki Pramanik, the former athlete in the eye of a gender storm, says she is being pushed by the police to commit suicide.  Ever since the police filed a chargesheet on Monday accusing her of being male and raping her live in partner, the question of her gender has become fodder for public speculation and life, for her, has become hell.

"When I was charged by the police,  I felt  the police was provoking me to commit suicide. Sometimes I am thinking of committing suicide, only because of the police. When I go out somewhere, people stare at me like I am a freak. I feel terrible, Pinki told NDTV.

On Monday, the police charged the gold medal winning middle distance runner with raping her live in partner.  The charge was based apparently on a medical report which they claimed said Pinki was male and capable of intercourse. At least that is what the assistant public prosecutor Santomoy Bose told reporters.

But doctors who filed the report say no. What they had said was Pinki was not female but "simultaneously she cannot be termed a male".
Dr BN Kahali, who headed the investigation, said Pinki suffered from DSD or Disorder of Sex Development and could best be described as a male pseudo hermaphrodite.

Whether she was capable of committing rape was not the purview of the medical board, he said.   

Gender and sports expert Dr Poyoshni Mitra says both the police and the doctors have done great injustice to Pinki. "There is no understanding not only of intersex conditions by the police and other govt officers but even from the side of medical board which seems incapable. They are terming it to be a case of hermaphroditism but that's a term discarded that's long been discarded."

The upshot of it all is, with her gender now public fodder, Pinki  is totally traumatized. She is not living in her own home. She is not taking public transport.  While her colleagues at work have been supportive  on the streets public reaction makes her sick.

"I feel like a joker in a circus," said Pinki. She is now considering writing to chief minister Mamata Banerjee for help.