PUSHED TO THE MARGIN
* NADA has no Muslims among its six top officials
* One of its doping control officers is a Muslim
* NDTL management has one Muslim among 21 members
* Nine Muslims among 214 ‘provisionally suspended’ athletes
THERE have been only a few Muslims among the officials at both the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) in New Delhi, according to a new book by Mohammed Abdul Mannan, At The Bottom of the Ladder: State of the Indian Muslims – https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0GF1Q9R25 – which quantifies Muslim presence in 150 key organisations, including Union ministries, departments, and organisations.
In December 2008, the Union government set up the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel, Anti-Doping Appeal Panel, and Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee under the Anti-Doping Rules to check incidents of doping and ensure a clean and healthy environment for sports in the country. These rules came into force in January 2009.
There was no Muslim among the nine-member Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel tasked with hearing athletes who have tested positive for doping and, after a fair hearing, also punish as prescribed under the Anti-Doping Rules. The four-member Anti-Doping Appeal Panel had no Muslims.
The panel hears appeals from sports persons punished by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel. The same had been the case with the three-member Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee (TUEC), tasked with considering applications of athletes seeking therapeutic use exemptions on the grounds of a medical condition requiring the use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method.
NADA, as an autonomous agency under the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, is the apex body responsible for promoting anti-doping efforts in the world’s most populous country and ensuring clean sport practices, as well as anti-doping education and awareness. It was created to discourage and prevent athletes and sports persons in the country from using illegal and artificial performance-enhancing drugs and to promote a healthy lifestyle among them.
It is the frontal organisation to deal with all matters relating to doping in sports, including orientation and training of sports persons, athletes, and coaches, testing of athletes both in-competition and out of competition, and disciplinary proceedings against erring athletes. The first meeting of NDTL’s General Body/Governing Body took place in January 2009, and by May, it moved to a new site with excellent facilities to increase testing capacity ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
The Anti-Doping Rules, like competition rules, govern the conditions under which sports are played. These rules are not intended to be subject to or limited by the requirements and legal standards applicable to criminal proceedings or employment matters.
The policies and minimum standards outlined in the code and implemented in these Anti-Doping Rules represent the consensus of a broad spectrum of stakeholders with an interest in fair sport and are respected by all courts and adjudicating bodies.
In 2019, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) came under NADA, ending a more than a decade-long standoff.
According to the data, a total of 5,961 tests were conducted in 2021 and 2022. Only a fraction of those – 114 – were on cricketers. In contrast, 1,717 tests were conducted on athletics, the most among all sports. Between January 2021 and December 2022, anti-doping sleuths knocked on the doors of Olympic silver medallist Ravi Dahiya 18 times in New Delhi and Sonepat in Haryana and collected his urine and blood samples, which were then analysed.
Presently, NADA in New Delhi has six top officials headed by its Director General – none of them is a Muslim. The Muslim official is Riyas Rashed, Doping Control Officer, looking after Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
In the 21-member management team of NDTL, there is only one Muslim, Haseen Jamal, Senior Technical Officer. Forty-eight Research and Contract staff members include three Muslims. Its Management Review Group (MRG) of five members has one Muslim – Dr S K Raza, a former director of IPFT, as the External Expert. The other 24 officers include one Muslim. The Internal Complaints Committee has Dr Jaseela Majeed, an Associate Professor at DPSU, as its Presiding Officer.
The World Anti-Doping Code 2021 has defined 11 Anti-Doping Rules Violations, with all of them applying to athletes. Violations 5-11 also apply to Athlete Support Personnel and Other Persons. In 2025, as many as 262 sports personalities were handed down a ban for use of banned drugs.
The list includes four Muslims – Mohammed Nur Hasan, an athlete who was handed a three year ineligibility ban effective March 2024; Farman Ali, also an athlete who was given a two years ineligibility ban effective January 2024; Owais Sarwar, a Wushu player was given a three year ineligibility order effective July 2023; and Faizan Reza, a powerlifting player who was given a three year ineligibility order effective April 2023.
Among the 212 ‘sanctioned’ athletes by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) are three Muslims, as of April 2025. Nine out of 214 ‘provisionally suspended’ athletes as of June 2025 were Muslims. A record 260 Indian athletes tested positive for banned substances in 2024 by NADA, the highest number of positives in a year, surpassing 225 in 2019. The other year in which more than 200 athletes tested positive was 2023, when 213 failed the tests. Nearly every other discipline in which samples were collected has tested positive. The 260 adverse analytical findings came from 31 of the 69 sports whose athletes were tested.
In 2023, the number of disciplines with positive tests was 28. Wrestling has seen a massive spike with 29 positive tests compared to 10 in 2023, while boxing has seen nearly twice as many instances as the previous year. The top 10 disciplines in which athletes tested positive in 2024 are: Athletics (76), Weightlifting (43), Wrestling (29), Boxing (17), Powerlifting (17), Kabaddi (10), Bodybuilding (8), Judo (6), Wushu (5) and CISS Wrestling (5). Automobile Sports (3), Equestrian (1), Handball (2), Kickboxing (1), Sailing, Skating, and Squash (1) have all appeared in the hall of shame for the first time in the past four years, according to the statistics.
To read and obtain more data, please visit:
At the Bottom of the Ladder: State of the Indian Muslims – https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0GF1Q9R25
Next: National Informatics Centre has 106 Muslims among 2,433 officials
