Chennai, Feb 28 (TIWN) An assistant commissioner of Tamil Nadu police has drawn flak for asking gender certificate from renowned athlete Santhi Soundararajan.

The athlete, who won 12 international medals for the country, was appointed as a woman athletic coach in the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority.  Santhi Soundararajan had alleged caste-based and gender-based discrimination against her and her colleagues at the sports institute run by the Tamil Nadu government.  The National Commission of Scheduled Castes took up the matter and directed the Vepery police in Chennai to register a case and conduct an investigation in 2018. The investigation dragged on and recently she was called for by the Assistant Commissioner of Vepery range, G. Harikumar to give her statement on the case. Santhi alleged that the police officer during the conduct of the investigation asked her to produce a certificate stating that she was a female.