India’s wrestling contingent has taken another hit just weeks before the Asian Games, and this time it involves a fighter who was supposed to be one of the team’s genuine medal hopes. Mukul Dahiya, the 86kg freestyle wrestler who won silver at the 2026 Asian Championships, has been provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency after testing positive for the stimulant Mephentermine.
The news broke while Dahiya was training in Yerevan, Armenia, alongside the rest of India’s Asian Games-bound freestyle wrestlers at an overseas exposure camp, a detail that only sharpens how sudden and disruptive the timing of this suspension really is.
How Mukul Dahiya Doping Case Came to Light
What has made this case sting even more for the Wrestling Federation of India is how it unfolded behind the scenes. In the ordinary course of things, NADA is expected to notify a national federation the moment it informs an athlete of a suspension. That did not happen here. Instead, the WFI reportedly found out only after noticing that the official suspension list itself had quietly been updated on August 4, well after the decision had already been made.
That gap left the federation scrambling to piece together what had happened to one of its stronger 86kg prospects, at a moment when the Asian Games squad had already been finalised and submitted to the Indian Olympic Association. With the roster locked in, there is little room left for a clean swap of the kind Indian wrestling has managed in past doping scares.
India Set to Lose 86kg Freestyle Wrestling Spot at Asian Games
The practical fallout is stark. With Dahiya’s suspension in force and the squad list already submitted, India will, in all likelihood, go into the Asian Games with no representation at all in the men’s 86kg freestyle category, a weight class where the country genuinely fancied its chances of a podium finish given Dahiya’s recent form and his silver medal at the continental championships earlier this year.
It marks the second doping-related gap in India’s wrestling squad in a matter of weeks. Greco-Roman wrestler Deepanshu, competing in the 130kg category, was provisionally suspended shortly before Dahiya after failing an out-of-competition test for stanozolol. In that earlier case, the WFI still had enough runway to bring in Ronak Dahiya, who had lost to Deepanshu in the Lucknow selection trials back in May, as a direct replacement. This time, officials admit there may be no such fix available.
What This Means for India’s Wrestling Squad Ahead of the Asian Games
The Asian Games run from September 19 to October 4 in Aichi and Nagoya, and India’s wrestling team had already been trimmed by the earlier Deepanshu case before this second blow landed. The freestyle line-up now stands to lose one more name from a roster that had originally featured six wrestlers each in the freestyle and Greco-Roman disciplines, built around established performers like Aman Sehrawat in the 57kg category and Deepak Punia at 97kg.
For a wrestling federation trying to defend and build on the six medals India brought home from the previous Asian Games, back-to-back doping suspensions this close to the competition are the last kind of headline anyone inside the camp wanted. Questions are now likely to follow about communication gaps between NADA and the WFI, and about how the federation plans to manage athlete testing schedules in the run-up to future major events. Vegas11 News will continue following developments in the Mukul Dahiya case, including any appeal, as India finalises its wrestling squad for the Asian Games.