India has suspended 13 Kabaddi players for doping and ordered more tests on others, just days ahead of a tournament being dubbed the World Kabaddi Cup.
The tests were conducted this month by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in Punjab.
Players from 10 countries, including England, the United States, Spain, Italy and Norway, will participate in the tournament, International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) President JS Gehlot said on Tuesday.
The nine-day tournament, which gets underway on Saturday, was organised by the government of Punjab and the IKF was helping the government put the event together, he added.
"The suspended players do not belong to the national team and they are mostly locals put together from different districts of Punjab," said Gehlot, speaking from Jaipur, headquarters of the federation.
"In any case they are playing a local form of Kabaddi called the circle style, which is not played by India's national players.
"I will not be surprised if more players test positive as this case highlights the difficulties of keeping a tab on everyone in such a vast country," he added.
In Kabaddi, players from each side take turns sending a "raider" to the other team's half, where the objective is to tag members of the opposite team before returning to their own half.
