Pinki Pramanik is an Indian track athlete who specialises in the 400 metres and 800 metres.She made her international debut at the 2003 World Youth Championships in Athletics where she reached the 800 metres semi-finals.
Pramanik had success with the national 4×400 metres relay team, winning silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, gold at the 2006 Asian Games, and gold at the 2005 Asian Indoor Games. She won three gold medals at the 2006 South Asian Games, winning the 400 and 800 m events, as well as the relay. She also won a silver medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games the same year with Rajwinder Kaur, Chitra Soman, and Manjeet Kaur in 4X400 metres relay race. She wanted to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 but a hamstring injury dashed her dreams. She retired three years ago.
She was born on April 10, 1986 at Purulia West Bengal to Pushparani Pramanik and Durga Chara. Pinki grew up as a girl in Tilakdi, a village nestled at the base of the scenic Ayodhya Hills that’s now a Maoist haven. Pushparani delivered Pinki, her third child, at home with the help of a midwife, so there’s no medical certificate to hold up as proof of her gender.
Her first success was winning two bronze medals at the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships when she was 17 years old. She was chosen to represent Asia at the IAAF World Cup. Domestically, she has won three times at the All-India Open National Championships. A series of injuries and a car crash meant that she rarely competed after 2007.
She was hailed as the successor of legendary sprinter PT Usha after she won medals at various national and international events.
Ms Pramanik was also arrested in 2004 when a single shot improvised gun was recovered from her possession. Since she belongs to Purulia in West Bengal, an area home to Naxal insurgency, she was investigated for links to the Naxals, but was later cleared of all charges.
In 2012 a rape allegation by Pramanik’s female partner led to medical tests to determine her gender. Initial private tests claimed to show her to be male. Pramanik disagreed with these results and police ordered a separate government-led test as part of the trial.
The police took her to a private nursing home where reports showed that she has both male and female reproductive organs. The athlete will undergo a gender determination test at a government hospital on Monday, police said.
Madhumita Mahato, one of her closest childhood friends, says: “Yes, her voice was a bit manly, but that was all.” Another friend, Tulasi Mahato, says, “She was a very good runner and we never saw anything abnormal in her. Pinki’s closest friends were two boys – Shilet Kuiri and Leru Pramanik. “There can never be any doubt that Pinki is a girl. Questioning her gender is such nonsense,” says Shilet.
Bir Singh Mahato, who taught Pinki at Tunturi High School, told TOI: “She is a good girl and a very simple person. She’s incapable of faking her gender to win a few medals.” Mahato, a former MP, hails Pinki as “Purulia’s pride”. As does the sitting local MLA K P Singh Deo: “I’ve met her many times and she’s a girl. I don’t want her to be wronged. She’s brought us glory”.
A senior coach said he had doubts about Pinki’s gender from the day she came to Kolkata and won races bare-footed. But then, Pinki has been running barefoot since she was a child. Her father couldn’t afford shoes. “She would always run. It seems she was born to run,” recalls Durga Charan. The first time Pinki competed formally in Jharkhand in 2000, she won medals and got a cow and a goat as gifts from the organizers.
Pinki’s detractors, however, cite her sudden disappearance from the tracks in 2007 as evidence of her disputed gender. They allege that after winning the gold in the 4x400m relay at the Doha Asian Games in 2006, she was quietly pulled out by the Athletic Federation of India from the subsequent 100m race, fearing more embarrassment after Santhi Soundarajan, another female Indian athlete, failed the gender test in Doha. “The AFI feared that a similar complaint would be made against Pinki and she would fail the test. So she was sent home,” said a fellow athlete.
A seven-member medical board constituted to ascertain her gender indicated at certain abnormalities. It has been hinted that Pinki suffers from congenital adrenal hyperplasia that leads a female to develop male features.
The hormone and chromosome tests now turn important since those will give the medical board an idea whether Pinki’s external features match with her internal organs. But merely a predominance of male hormone won’t prove that she is capable of acting like a man, experts argued.
“It’s not just about hormones. In fact, male hormones can’t make her act like a man sexually. It’s possible only if she has XY chromosome. That will prove that Pinki is genetically a man. However, the possibility seems very remote for such cases are rare. She is a woman if she has XX chromosome. Then, her male genitals won’t be capable of performing a sexual act,” said medical genetics expert Koushik Mondol.\
Pinki had been working as Ticket Collector with Eastern Railway.She has been suspended from  her Railway Job after Rape charges and accusation of being a male