Indian CS:GO pro Gurtej “ProuD” Singh claimed in a Facebook post that Panday had access to hacks and even advised to use it carefully on LAN events. Panday also allegedly hinted that he used hacks during the Indian LAN Gaming (ILG) tournament in December 2018.

In the screenshots Singh posted as proof, Panday was apparently giving instructions on how to switch on the hacks, specifically by switching on the cheat file and then linking it with vibrance.gui, which is mostly used by pro players to increase the game’s brightness settings. Since that file was commonly used, he apparently linked the hack file to it so that it would raise no suspicion.

Panday continued that the hack came with a panic key which will disable all the cheating commands and will only be re-enabled by pressing certain keys in the open chat window in CS:GO to avoid being caught in LAN events. He also provided a zip file which detailed how it can be enabled by pressing HOME and disabled by pressing END.

Singh said that there have been many accusations of cheating towards SRA in the past few months from reputed members of the Indian pro scene and that Panday was “going to use the current ‘break’ his team is taking to try and hide it in a better way.”

Singh continued that when he tried to confront Panday, the latter threatened to commit suicide as well as revoke and get a VAC ban imposed on the Steam account of another Indian pro, Sabyasachi “Antidote” Bose. Panday had apparently retained the primary email of Bose’s account.

This prompted Singh and others to go to Panday’s house in an attempt to settle the issue amicably with him and acquire the primary email for Bose’s Steam account. While a deal seemed to have been struck between the two parties at first, Singh said that things fell apart because Panday did not want proof of his cheating posted and that “he behaved very [rudely] because we declined his offer.”

“It’s a shame we have players using hacks to gain an advantage at such a high level within the Indian Pro scene. We hope the [tournament organizers] take a stern look at the proof,” said Singh.

We spoke to one of Panday’s teammates in SRA, who denied the accusations against his captain. “I’ve been playing with him for 7 to 8 years, I haven’t seen him cheating,” the teammate said in a message.

Panday and SRA first started turning heads in 2018 for their fearless style of play, which netted them 3rd place at the ZOWIE eXTREMESLAND Offline Indian Qualifiers at LXG and 2nd place at the ESL INDIA Fall Season Finals. The roster had by then established themselves as a top-5 team in the Indian scene and were reportedly taking a break, as mentioned above, from competitive gaming to take their exams.

This incident has dealt yet another nasty blow to what was a thriving Indian CS:GO scene until Nikhil “forsaken“ Kumawat was infamously caught cheating in a tournament and subsequently banned for his actions just a few months ago. Another Indian pro was even caught cheating at the ESL Starter Cup just earlier this month. Still reeling from past cheating incidents, many among the Indian CS:GO community are now wondering aloud what all this could spell for the future of their competitive scene.