Around lunch on Day 1 of the first Test between India and Bangladesh here in Kanpur, a video clip on social media raised many an eyebrow. It captured a Bangladeshi fan accusing a section of the local crowd at Green Park of “assaulting” him. He also alleged that his national flag was snatched from him.
RevSportz dug deep and got some details. The Bangladeshi fan calls himself Tiger Robi and turns up in the stands as a tiger mascot for Bangladesh matches. Police sources here confirmed that he was taken to the hospital after he complained about being “beaten”. “We will check CCTV footages to find out what happened,” a police officer told RevSportz on condition of anonymity. “As because he complained about suffering blows, we sent him to hospital.”
Scratch beneath the surface, and some more details will emerge. A BCCI source called Tiger Robi a sensationalist. It is learnt that the fan takes pleasure in talking ill about India wherever he goes. Even during the first Test in Chennai, he had made allegations about local fans “abusing him”, notwithstanding that he couldn’t understand a word of Tamil, by his own admission. At Chepauk, he was allegedly doing Facebook live from the stands, which was not allowed.
A lot of Bangladeshi reporters, who are here to cover the ongoing Test series, took his allegations with a pinch of salt. “He is an attention-seeker,” said Prothom Alo’s Muhammad Jubair.