cricket

Updated: Mar 14, 2019 18:23 IST

Indian pacer Mohammed Shami has been formally charged with domestic violence and sexual harassment by the Kolkata police. The charge-sheet was filed by investigators on Thursday, nearly a year after his wife filed a police complaint against Mohammed Shami leveling multiple allegations.

The charge-sheet was filed in an Alipore court.

News of the marital discord reached public domain last year when his wife, Hasin Jahan, took to Facebook to level multiple charges against her husband including domestic violence. Jahan, a formal model, had filed a complaint against four people in Shami’s family in March last year.

Shami, 28, - one of the mainstays of the Indian pace attack - has all along denied the allegations leveled by his wife.

Hasin Jahan said she had been told about the charge-sheet filed by the police but did not have the details. “I have been told that police have submitted the charge-sheet mentioning IPC sections 498A (domestic violence) and 354A (sexual harassment),” she said.

Her lawyer, Zakir Hussain, said the police appeared to have filed charges under two counts alone.

Mohd Shami’s lawyer Salim Rahaman said they would respond appropriately to the police charge-sheet.

But he underlined that the police had dropped three prime allegations leveled by Hasin Jahan including rape (allegedly by Shami’s elder brother), attempt to murder and physical assault.

“The only two sections slapped against my client are that of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Let summons be issued against us and we will also respond accordingly,” Rahaman said.

When the cricketer’s wife went public last year, she had also accused him of receiving money from a Pakistani woman at the instance of a UK-based businessman, the Board of Control for Cricket in India had also ordered its own inquiry. This one had, however, cleared Mohd Shami of the charge.

The two tied the knot in 2014, about two years after they met in a party.