forsaken issued five-year ban by ESIC

After being caught cheating on LAN, former OpTic India player Nikhil "⁠forsaken⁠" Kumawat has been banned from participating in ESIC events for five years, the organisation has announced.

The 23-year-old was caught red-handed at the eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals, where a cheat program was discovered by the tournament admins, which ultimately led to his team OpTic India being disqualified and later disbanded completely by OpTic.

According to the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC), the discovery prompted to organisation to ask the tournament organiser ESL India to investigate whether forsaken had also cheated at the organiser's India Premiership Fall Finale in September.

The same cheat used at eXTREMESLAND was quickly found on the hard drive used by forsaken at the ESL event, which has now prompted ESIC, of which ESL India is a member, to ban forsaken from "all esports related activity for or with any ESIC member organisation" for five years.

ESIC says that it attempted to contact forsaken to 'offer him a reasonable time to consider the evidence' and plead either guilty or not guilty, but goes on to say that the 23-year-old has not responded.

forsaken had previously been sanctioned by ESIC, as it was discovered in 2017 that he was the owner of a VAC-banned account that he alleges was sold on to someone else, and that he was not himself the person cheating on the account.

As per ESIC rules, a second offence constitutes a lifetime ban, but the organisation writes in its announcement of the 5-year ban that a permanent ban 'was not proportionate as his first offence in 2017 was only very indirectly related to this offence and that a lifetime ban would have been disproportionate.' It went on to write the following:

We are conscious that many in the CS:GO community will disagree with this and we understand their feelings, but do not agree and feel that sanctions in esports ought to reflect what is accepted practice in traditional sports as our industry professionalises.