OpTic India Counter-Strike player Agneya "Marzil" Koushik said the cheating scandal created by former teammate Nikhil "forsaken" Kumawat is "unforgivable" and has "destroyed so many people's hard work."
OpTic India was disqualified from the eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia Finals earlier this month when cheating software was discovered on forsaken's machine during competition.
That led to an ESL India investigation, and OpTic India's spot in the ESL Pro League S8 Asia was stripped after it was confirmed that forsaken had used cheating software at the Premiership Fall Finals, won by OpTic India.
OpTic India said the other players on the team had no knowledge of forsaken's cheating, and Marzil said in a Facebook post Tuesday that the "debacle" has caused the public to question the remaining members.
"What forsaken did is unforgivable as he has destroyed so many people's hard work and cost multiple people jobs and opportunities for no fault of their own," Marzil wrote. "But there is no point in me holding a grudge against him or bad mouthing him as that amounts to nothing. What happened was unfortunate but it is important that we look ahead and try to recover from this setback.
"I know I've also publicly defended forsaken in the past and I am sorry for the same. I put too much faith in somebody since the anticheat systems couldn't catch him for so long and I believed it to be another ropz sort of case."
Marzil said he is taking time away from CS:GO to spend time with family and friends and does not know what his professional gaming future is.
The Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) announced last week that forsaken has been banned from all ESL competition for five years.
"We at ESL India have completed a thorough review of the recent incident regarding Nikhil "Forsaken" Kumawat and OpTic India at the ESL Indian Premiership Fall Season CS:GO Final," ESL India said in a release Thursday, "and we would like to apologize that cheating could even happen at this competition."
--Field Level Media