India’s Santhi Sounderajan, who ran to a silver in the 800 metres at the Doha Asian Games, was stripped of her medal today even as Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi ordered a probe into her “gender test” failure.

Dr Manmohan Singh, chairman of IOA Medical Commission, will inquire into the matter and submit his report within 10 days. According to IOA, Santhi was disqualified on the recommendation of the Olympic Council of Asia Medical Committee. In fact, Santhi was pulled out of the 1500 m event after she failed the gender-test following her 800 m win. Athletics Federation of India secretary-general confirmed that they had been asked by the IOA to return the medal.

This is not the first time that an Indian athlete has been involved in a gender controversy with Anusuya Bai and Nani Radha having failed such tests in the 1970s and Solamathi later.

Meanwhile, The Indian Express has been told that Santhi failed a gender-verification test conducted by a Southern Railways hospital in Chennai two years ago after she was selected for a job under the Railway sports quota.

Since Santhi had only sought a job with the Railways, details of her medical tests and results were kept confidential and no one came to know about her “real gender”. Even Santhi was only told that she was “medically unfit” for the job.

“In 2004, Santhi was sent for the mandatory medical examination to the Southern Railways Hospital in Perambur in north Chennai. After she was subjected to a physical examination by a gynaecologist, we sent her blood samples for a chromosomal analysis (genetic test) outside Chennai as the hospital is not fully equipped for a gender-verification test. We got confirmation that she had failed the test,”. a senior hospital staffer told The Indian Express.

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