Dad?s pressure kills budding talent

A promising 14-year-old table tennis player died on Monday at his south Kolkata home while practising with his father. The boy?s mother and sister blamed the father. They said he had forced the boy to practise from early morning till well after noon ? when the boy collapsed.

A promising 14-year-old table tennis player died on Monday at his south Kolkata home while practising with his father. The boy’s mother and sister blamed the father. They said he had forced the boy to practise from early morning till well after noon — when the boy collapsed.

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The police have detained the father, but said the cause of death would be known only after a post mortem examination. The family and neighbours of Dipak Bhattacharjee alleged he beat and tortured his son Biswadip whenever the boy lost a match.

“This morning my brother returned home at around 6 a.m. after exercising at the Rifle Club Playground,” Biswadip’s younger sister Neha said. “Breakfast over, my father asked him to start practising at once. Both he and I practised for three hours from 7.30 a.m. When we stopped, my father asked Biswadip to continue,” said Neha.

She said Dipak hit Biswadip with a small plastic object whenever he missed a shot. Around 12.30 p.m., Biswadip collapsed. Biswadip was declared dead at MR Bangur Hospital. Biswadip’s mother Papiya too blamed Dipak for the death.

Biswadip’s former coach Tapan Chandra narrated an instance when Dipak beat his son with an iron chain. “I took the boy to hospital for an MRI scan. He had a serious head injury,” said Chandra.