Watch: Food kept on toilet floor served to players during Kabaddi tournament, viral video creates furore among public

During a U-17 girls' state-level tournament, participants were served rice and stale pooris off the floor of a stadium toilet in Uttar Pradesh.

Kabaddi players were served rice and stale pooris, which were kept on the floor of a stadium toilet, during a three-day state level U-17 girls' tournament in the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. The alleged incident took place in a toilet area at a sports stadium, the video of which has since gone viral. The video footage captured and uploaded on Twitter shows rice being taken out of a utensil and then placed on a toilet floor, while the pooris are placed on a piece of paper, also lying on the floor.

The kabaddi players were served food off the toilet floor. (Twitter)

Animesh Saxena, the sports officer of Saharanpur, however dismissed those accusations and called them 'baseless'. "Food served to players here is of good quality. There was a space crunch and the food was cooked near the stadium pool. Because it was raining, we made arrangements for food in the swimming pool area. The food was kept in the changing room next to the swimming pool. Some construction work is being done in the stadium and there was no other place to keep the food because of the rain," he told Sports Tak.

Here is the video:

The Uttar Pradesh state government has suspended Saharanpur Sports Officer Saxena following the controversy. In a letter issued by the Sports Directorate, the suspension was announced and it was informed that the decision was taken after Animesh failed to come up with an explanation for the incident.

"The Chief Secretary of Sports Department made aware through a letter that photos of food meant for kabaddi players participating in an event held in Saharanpur being found in a toilet have surfaced on social media, causing immense slander against the department and the government. It seems that regional officials and stakeholders' defective operations led to this incident and the Chief Secretary instructed for strict action against Regional Sports Officer, Saharanpur, Animesh Saxena," read the letter.

Following the incident, Additional District Magistrate Rajnish Kumar Mishra said: "I saw through social media that food was served to players in unhygienic conditions. There was a competition going on in the stadium in which food was served, some issue of some dirty toilet has been found, in respect of which DM sahib has handed over the investigation to me. The report has been sought in the day. Tomorrow I will go and investigate, whatever facts will come to light, I will submit the report to the District Magistrate."

District Magistrate Akhilesh Singh further said: "There was a state-level tournament in Saharanpur, which received some negative reporting. The report about the incident is being made. Since it was a huge competition in which a lot of children participated and reports of improper arrangements have surfaced, the matter will be looked into seriously and action will be taken against the official at fault in a week."