Rust, Negligence & Two Dead Teenagers — Haryana’s Sports System on Trial - video Dailymotion

India Today

Two teenage basketball players — Hardik Rathi and Aman — died just two days apart in Haryana after rusted basketball poles collapsed during practice.

Transcript

00:00A 16-year-old national level basketball player goes to practice in the morning and comes home in a body bag

00:05because a rusted pole could not stay standing.

00:12How's this even real life in India in 2025?

00:20Harthik Rathi was not some hobby player.

00:22He was a medal winner at multiple national championships

00:25and had reportedly just been selected for the Indian basketball team.

00:28On the morning of 25th November 2025 at the government sports ground in Lakhon Majra, Rohtak,

00:33CCTV shows him sprinting towards the hoop, going up for a dunk, hanging on the rim for a second

00:38and then the entire iron structure topples forward.

00:41The rim slams into his chest.

00:43His friends drag the pole off him, rush him to PGIMS Rohtak.

00:46He does not make it.

00:48You think that's the whole story?

00:50Two days earlier in Bahadurgarh, another teenager, 15-year-old Aman,

00:53also died after a basketball pole collapsed on him at a stadium.

00:57Two class 10 boys, two districts, the same state, the same sport, the same way of dying.

01:02He said, I don't want to drink water.

01:04My son, I don't want to drink water.

01:06I don't want to drink water.

01:08And here's the part that really stinks.

01:10Basic global standards for basketball facilities are not rocket science.

01:13Equipment has a life, needs regular inspection, corrosion at the base is a red flag,

01:18an outdated or unsafe gear is supposed to be replaced.

01:20If your pole is so rusted that a single 16-year-old hanging from it can rip it out on the ground,

01:25that's not an accident, that's years of neglect made visible in one second of video.

01:30We scream Kelo India, we sell dreams of Olympic medals, we print posters of smiling athletes

01:34and then we kill a national level player with a rusted pole on a ground whose repair money was sanctioned

01:39but apparently never turned into actual work.

01:42So yes, a lot of Indians like me are angry.

01:44Angry that two teenagers had to die in 48 hours before anyone thought of emergency meetings and suspensions.

01:49Angry that the default setting after every preventable tragedy is, we will inquire.

01:54No more freak accidents.

01:55Name the engineers, the contractors, the officials who signed off on this death track.

01:58Put the inspection logs, tenders and fund utilization details in the public domain.

02:02Time-bound structural audits of every government sports facility with results made public and non-compliance

02:08and treated as criminal negligence.

02:09Hardik Ratti should have been trending for his dunks.

02:11Instead, he's trending because a country that loves to brag about its youth power

02:15could not keep a basketball hoop standing.

02:17Tell us what you think.

02:18I'm Manisha Dikari.

02:20First things fast.

02:21No.

Rust, Negligence & Two Dead Teenagers — Haryana’s Sports System on Trial

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended