Royal Challengers Bangalore player Luke Pomersbach, who allegedly molested an American woman and severely beat up her fiance, will be produced in a Delhi court on Saturday at 2pm.
Pomersbach was on Friday arrested and later granted an interim bail till Saturday for allegedly misbehaving with the woman, a US citizen, at a five-star hotel in New Delhi.
The court will decide if Pomersbach should continue to stay out on bail or go back into police custody. The police will also produce CCTV footage and the doctors' opinion in the court.
The 27-year-old Pomersbach's conduct prompted RCB owner Vijay Mallya to suspend the batsman, who has not played a single IPL match so far this season, till the time he is cleared of the charges.
The incident came two days after Shah Rukh Khan's scuffle with officials of the Maharashtra Cricket Association officials, which has prompted MCA to ban the Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner and Bollywood star from its premises for five years.
The victim, Zohal Hameed, claimed that Pomersbach invited himself for some drinks with the couple and some common friends from Mumbai in their room.
She left the men alone and went to her bedroom for catching some sleep but Luke followed her and misbehaved with her, she alleged.
When her fiance intervened, Luke allegedly beat him up, she said.
The woman claimed that pressure is being mounted on her to withdraw the case but she will not do so.
"The RCB is aware of the incident involving one of our players. RCB will offer full cooperation to the authorities.
Till the time he is cleared, Luke Pomersbach will not be part of RCB," RCB owner Vijay Mallya said on Friday.
IPL authorities sought to distance themselves from the incident with Chairman Rajiv Shukla saying the event had nothing to with IPL because it did not happen in any party organised by it.
"Let the law take its course," he said.
Denying the charge that IPL was full of controversies, Shukla said IPL 4 and 5 were free of controversies till now.
However, BJP MP and former cricketer Kirti Azad alleged that the IPL "has given rise to many unsavoury things. Today's attempt to rape is one such (incident)".
He said foreign players were taking advantage of the conditions here.
The victim said, "I am not sure about his (player's) full name. But he tagged along with us after the party and (insisted) that we have few drinks with him. He told something to my fiance and I did not like."
"Then we left for our room and we thought he had gone to his room but he came upstairs tagging along with us. He asked us to help him around and telling my fiance that lets go and have drinks," she said.
"He (fiance) is a nice guy and he did not want to say No. He just said fine, but....," she said.
Shukla, meanwhile, said that it was "an individual misbehaviour of an individual player".
"There were no official parties in IPL 4 and 5. So the incident was not connected with an official IPL party. It was an individual misbehaviour of an individual player," he told reporters.
"We have done away with official parties. So if some individual player does something in his individual capacity in a hotel, IPL has nothing to do with it," Shukla added.
Pomersbach, who made his international debut when he was called into Australia's Twenty20 side in Perth in December 2007, has a history of misbehaviour under the influence of alcohol. |
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Molestation charges: RCB player Luke Pomersbach to appear in court today