Indian archers experienced a night of chaos when their return to the country from Dhaka after the Asian Championships was delayed by a day due to a canceled flight, forcing them to stay in “poor shelter” after sailing through the violence-hit Bangladeshi capital without security.
Eleven members of the 23-strong unit, including two minors, were stranded at the airport for nearly 10 hours due to repeated flight delays and a “total lack of support” from the airline they were booked on.
The group, which included seasoned pros Abhishek Verma, Jyoti Surekha and Olympian Dhiraj Bommadevara, arrived at the Dhaka airport on Saturday for their flight to Delhi at 9.30 pm, but after boarding they were told that the plane had a technical snag and would not take off.
It was at a time when Dhaka witnessed violence on the streets as it awaited the verdict of a special tribunal against ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a case of alleged crimes against humanity.
The archers, seven of them women, remained inside the terminal until 2 a.m. with no light. When the cancellation was finally announced, passengers were informed that there would be no replacement flight for that night.
The moment the team left the airport, their suffering escalated.
They were herded into a “windowless local bus” and driven for almost half an hour to a makeshift hut that was like a “Dharamshala”, the country’s most decorated male archer Verma.
The 36-year-old said the place the team was taken to “wasn’t even a proper hotel” but a cramped dormitory with six beds in one female room and only one dirty toilet.
“The Dharamshala that was mentioned in the name of the guest house was very poor. There were six double beds in one room… There was only one toilet and the condition of the toilet was very bad,” he told PTI.
“It was such that I don’t think anyone could take a bath there,” claimed Verma, who has silver medals from the Asian Games (2018 and 2022).
Their attempts at an alternative arrangement also could not succeed because they could not do any international transactions.
“Personally, we couldn’t manage anything because no international cards were accepted there. We couldn’t get an Uber because there was an error in the payment method… And we weren’t confirmed for the flight,” Verma said.
“Even if we knew we would get it by 11am, we would have stayed back at the airport. Because they (the airline) haven’t confirmed anything.”
The contingent headed back to the airport at 7 a.m. the next day, only to be met with further delays upon reaching Delhi.
Several archers missed their next connections – to Hyderabad and Vijayawada – forcing costly rebooking and long journeys.
“Now all the flights have been canceled and the federation had to bear the cost,” Verma said.
“One ticket, Mumbai to Delhi, I think the cost of each ticket is more than Rs 20,000. So if our Federation had to bear thousands of rupees, who is responsible?” he said.
Verma did not mince words when he called the airline to account for not supporting the national team in a difficult situation.
“Your plane broke down, and when you know there’s a riot going on outside… How did they put us on local transport? If anything happened on that bus, there were three teenage girls. Who’s to blame?”
“There were seven female members, four of whom were below the age of 20. No, there was no compensation. It’s not like they didn’t know,” Verma claimed.
That nightmare overshadowed India’s best show at the Asian Championships, where they topped the medal table with 10 podium finishes – including six gold, three silver and one bronze.
They finished ahead of heavyweight South Korea, who also finished with 10 medals but had less gold in their tally.
India had a 23-member contingent in Dhaka and traveled in three groups — to Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
The Kolkata group, which had seven members including Atana Das, Deepika Kumari and coaches Poornima Mahato and Rahul Banerjee, had no such problem, while the Mumbai group, which had Maharashtra archers like Prathamesh Fuge and Sahil Jadhav, also arrived on time.
– The end
Issued by:
Amar Panicker
Published on:
November 18, 2025
