Bangladeshi fan Tiger Robi, who allegedly made up stories of being manhandled at Green Park on Friday, is set to be deported from India. According to sources, he also faces a five-year stadium ban in India.
According to local police sources, the Bangladeshi fan has already been sent to Delhi from Kanpur, from where he would be sent to Dhaka on Sunday. Sources said, Robi came to India on a medical visa and he was supposed to go to Kolkata for treatment. Instead, he followed the Bangladesh cricket team to Chennai and then to Kanpur for the ongoing two-Test series in India. “He flouted visa regulations,” said the source.
Around lunch on Day 1 of the second Test between India and Bangladesh here in Kanpur, Robi alleged that he faced violence from a section of the local crowd. He was sent to hospital where X-rays and CT scans were done. Nothing was found in the reports. At the hospital, he changed his version, saying that he had been suffering from dehydration.
Assistant police commissioner of Kalyanpur, Abhishek Pandey, called the altercation claims as “baseless”.
Prior to the incident, Robi was seen standing in the Block C balcony, an area that was off-limits for the spectators. A purported video clip that surfaced on social media captured him saying that he was punched from behind.
Robi, who comes to Bangladesh matches in the colours and stripes of a tiger and a painted face, reportedly has a dubious history. A BCCI insider called him a “sensationalist” who “talks ill” about India wherever he goes. In Chennai also, he had accused local fans of “abusing” him despite not understanding a word of Tamil. Even the Bangladeshi reporters here, who have been covering the ongoing series, have called him an “attention-seeker”.