The Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) secretary Vinod S. Kumar feels the organisation is being unfairly targeted.
“The KCA became aware of the matter only after Kerala Police visited the KCA headquarters as part of their investigation,” Vinod told The Hindu.
“The KCA appointed M. Manu only after he was exonerated by the Kerala High Court. When the police case was first registered against him, many parents had given a statement to the police that the complaint was a fabricated one and it was alleged that the complainant was acting in vengeance after failing at selection trials. We appointed him for the second time following many requests from parents,” Vinod said.
The KCA secretary added that Manu had resigned and had served his notice period but the KCA was forced to name him as a coach for the Pink tournament as none of the other qualified coaches were available.
“It was merely a stop-gap arrangement,” he said. “The allegation that KCA is protecting Manu because he is the coach of my club is baseless. He was never part of the coaching set-up of my club. It is true that he represented my club as a player for a while but also played for other clubs before he became a coach.
“It is a bid to tarnish me and these allegations are made by people with vested interests. These people have tried to derail the Kerala Cricket League by approaching the prospective bidders to withdraw from the auction and even contacted actor Mohanlal and asked him to stay away from the KCL.”
Vinod said the KCA had taken steps to avoid such incidents in future. “The association would have taken action if the survivor had approached us directly, but she contacted the Childline and the KCA came to know of it only after police visited the premises for gathering evidence,” he said.
“The earlier complaint was instigated by people who want to destroy the KCA.”
Vinod said a woman coach had been assigned to assist Manu. “Surveillance cameras were replaced with high resolution ones and the entire area came under surveillance,” he said. “However, the cameras couldn’t be installed inside the gym and toilets for obvious reasons. We had also made it mandatory for parents to be present at the premises during training.”
