During 10th Chessable Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival 2023, few Indian players suffered a nightmarish experience as they were robbed of their valuables, cash and a passport. 

The list of players who were affected by three separate incidents of break-ins into their apartments includes Grand Master Sankalp Gupta, international master Dushyant Sharma, woman grandmaster Srija Seshadri, woman international master Mounika Akshaya, woman International MasterArpita Mukherjee and woman FIDE master Vishwa Shah. There was a sizeable contingent of over 70 Indian players competing at the event. 

The first incident happened in the room shared by GM Sankalp Gupta and international master Dushyant Sharma on the 19th of this month. 

Three days later, two separate apartments were hit on the same day in the space of a few hours: in the first one, an apartment shared by five players including WIM Mounika Akshaya was hit and in the second, the apartment that had WIM Arpita Mukherjee and WFM Vishwa Shah was burgled. 

All three apartments were in the official accommodation buildings identified for the Indian players by the tournament organizers, located within two kilometres from where the event was happening. So far no players of any other nationality have complained of their apartments being broken into or their possessions going missing. 

In a statement, even as the organisers tried to empathise with the players, they made a veiled attempt to shift the blame on the affected players. “It is speculated that an unfortunate oversight in locking doors or windows may have been a contributing factor,” the organizers said. 

The statement also said that they had hired a security guard to patrol the area after the first incident and that the apartment where the third incident had happened was under CCTV surveillance and that it had not caught anyone breaking into the apartment.