Controversial forsaken ban comes to an end after 5 years

One of the most controversial cheaters in CS:GO history, Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat, has managed to overcome the ban time imposed on him by ESIC in 2018. This becomes the end of the ban for the Indian player, who was off the official Counter-Strike servers for 5 years.

For those who don’t recognize him or didn’t know, forsaken was caught using cheats at a LAN tournament in 2018, specifically at the eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals, which was taking place in Shanghai, China.

The moment the tournament organizers and admins noticed this, they quickly went to inspect the PC the Indian player was using. However, even though he was caught red-handed, what caught their attention was that the cheat the player was using was named “Word.exe,” just like the Microsoft Office program.

forsaken’s ban ends after 5 years

As reported by the esports journalist of the web portal Dexerto, Jacob Hale, the ban imposed by ESIC on forsaken has come to an end after 5 years. In addition, it is also reported that the Indian player can once again compete at the highest level and in official tournaments.

Forsaken’s ESIC ban has officially ended today and the former OpTic India CS:GO player is free to compete once again.

What a time. pic.twitter.com/egL59St7fU

— Jacob Hale (@JakeHaleee) October 24, 2023

This case, besides being controversial and very popular in the CS:GO community, had terrible consequences on the Indian Counter-Strike scene. As a result, OpTic Gaming, the team to which forsaken belonged, decided to terminate all players after the Indian was discovered using cheats. However, this was not all, as shortly after, forsaken was also found to have used cheating in the ESL India Premiership Fall, which was played weeks earlier.

With these two aggravating factors and, above all, fully confirmed, the ESIC decided to impose a ban on forsaken for 5 years. This ban, as you might expect, kept the Indians completely away from all Counter-Strike competitions and any esports that were associated with the ESIC.

Eventually, this forced the player to hang up the mouse and keyboard, as, according to ESIC, they allowed him to have the evidence reviewed and, most importantly, to plead not guilty. However, forsaken did not heed the call and disappeared from the map.

Forsaken disappeared from the esports map

From the moment forsaken was caught cheating, and shortly before the 5-year ban was announced, the player completely disappeared from the esports scene. Right now, no one knows how to locate him, as he left all his social networks or, in any case, changed his name from them, and it is not known if he plans to return to CS2.

Finally, what is certain is that he is now free to return to Counter-Strike if he wants to and, of course, if any organization dares to give him a chance. With the end of the ban, forsaken can return to compete in BLAST, WePlay Academy, and ESL tournaments (including the Majors).

Header: Yuki_Yujen Chen