Indian cricket physio Bashir Ashai accused of molesting masseuse at La Mon Hotel
A top Indian cricket physio has been accused of sexually assaulting a masseuse in a Northern Ireland hotel where his team were staying.
Doctor Aijaz Bashir Ashai (42) appeared in handcuffs at Ards Magistrates Court yesterday after spending a night in custody, where he was charged with touching a female masseuse in a sexual manner without her consent.
The incident is alleged to have occurred in La Mon Hotel and Country House on Tuesday this week.
The Nepalese national cricket team, for whom Ashai is currently working, is staying at the hotel while they compete in the qualifying stages of the Twenty20 World Cup which are being held at Stormont.
A constable told the court the masseuse alleged that Dr Ashai, of Thakur Village, East Mumbai, India, had asked for a full body massage, and despite having been instructed to wear underpants, he attended without them.
He told her he was suffering in the groin and buttock area, the constable continued, and grabbed her hands and forced them between his legs, while in a state of arousal.
The court heard it was alleged he later apologised to the masseuse, in front of a hotel manager, noting she was in distress, and offered a £10 tip, which was refused.
Dr Ashai’s lawyer said he admitted that he attended the massage, but denied that he grabbed the masseuse’s hands, or that he was aroused during treatment.
The lawyer said Dr Ashai had planned to travel to Dublin today with the team for their remaining group qualifying matches, and then on to Scotland.
The president and assistant manager of the Nepalese team attended court, as well as event liaison manager Christopher Elliot.
He told the court the Nepalese national team were prepared to offer a surety and pay for hotel accommodation for Dr Ashai until the case was dealt with.
With a view to a bail address, he said a room had been booked in the Ramada Hotel, Shaw’s Bridge, where Dr Ashai’s belongings could be transferred. Deputy District Judge Joe Rice said he was unhappy with Dr Ashai staying at a hotel which had leisure facilities, for the risk of further offending.
The accused’s lawyer then agreed to a bail address at the Strangford Arms Hotel in Newtownards, within walking distance to the court and the police station. Judge Rice gave Dr Ashai bail for £2,500, on the condition the Nepal team lodge a cash surety for £2,500, that he reside at the Strangford Arms, make no contact with witnesses, report to police three times a week and give up his passport. The matter was adjourned to August 12.
Dr Ashai is one of the best-known sports physiotherapists in India who has worked with a number of the country’s top cricketing stars.
His website describes him as “an expert in the field of advanced physiotherapy. He is also a physical trainer, a personal instructor, writer and sportsman.”
It continues: “He is a renowned sports physiotherapist who is currently the head physio for the Indian rugby team and the West Zone Deodar Trophy cricket team. Dr Ashai is the Head of Department, Advanced Physiotherapy in Ortho, Neuro and Sports Rehabilitation in Saifee Hospital, Mumbai. Dr Ashai also runs his own fitness and sports rehabilitation centre.”
Namrata Zakaria and Lata Mishra |
While Ashai continues to enjoy the patronage of the high and mighty in Mumbai, this newspaper has learnt that he was asked to leave Saifee Hospital after two of his patients filed separate complaints of molestation against him in 2013. The patients, who had filed police complaints too, did not pursue the cases after the hospital took prompt action against Dr Ashai.
Hospital sources said at least two of Dr Ashai female colleagues at the hospital too had complained of sexual harassment and their grievances were also taken into account while acting against him.
A hospital administrator, who did not wish to be identified, on Saturday confirmed that there were complaints against Dr Ashai that led to him being fired and that there is records of these complaints and the subsequent action taken by the hospital.
It was at Saifee that this woman from a prominent south Mumbai family met Dr Ashai, and after he was asked to leave the hospital, began to see him for her back problem at his Opera House clinic.
The woman told this newspaper over the phone on Saturday that she had visited him on eight to nine occasions. While on most visits, she was accompanied by her mom, the day he raped her at his Opera House clinic in October 2013, she was alone.
“I saw him in his Opera House clinic on a few occasions after he stopped visiting Saifee. During one of these visits, he locked the door when I was with him. He removed a chain with a religious motif from around his neck, shut the lights and pressed his hand on my mouth. It was over in two minutes,“ she said. The victim said she didn’t scream for help, because she was frozen with fear. “I used all my strength to stop him, but he was physically stronger. I was like a rag doll, I could do nothing,“ she said, adding that he attacked her while she was on the patient’s examining bed. The lady said she left his clinic shaking and crying. She said the doctor didn’t use any protection and she was scared of acquiring a disease.She also spent a month hoping she wouldn’t get pregnant.
The victim did not tell her husband or her parents about this episode for the fear of sullying her own reputation and that of her husband and his family, who are very well-known in Mumbai’s page-three circuit. She also has children whose lives she did not want to taint with this scandal. “But I knew I would read about him one day in the papers and feel vindicated,“ she said.
She said she knows of several women who have been to him and complained of his “inappropriate touch“. Ironically, Ashai having left Saifee, had himself warned her of his reputation.“He dismissed it as rumours started by his rivals who wished to malign him,“ she added.
Describing Ashai’s Opera House clinic in great detail, she said it is filled with pictures of him with various Hindi film actors. Some of them are well known to the victim, but she repeated she has told nobody about this incident.
She, of course, never went back to Ashai’s clinic or saw him again. However, so great is her anger and anguish about the two-year old incident that she could not resist sending him a text message after reading about his arrest in Belfast.It simply said `serves you right.
Ashai, who is being tried in an Irish court, will appear before a judge on August 12. The Nepal cricket team, who he was working with in Ireland, has sacked him.
Leave a Reply