{"id":925559,"date":"2026-10-12T15:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925559\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:44:14","slug":"chess-professionals-alleged-stalker-goes-on-melbourne-hunger-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925559\/","title":{"rendered":"Chess professional’s alleged stalker goes on Melbourne hunger strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

A chess professional’s alleged stalker has vowed to continue a hunger strike until he suffers significant health issues.<\/p>\n

Shumsheer Singh Ghumman, 47, began his prison hunger strike on Thursday after alleging he was assaulted by two inmates while on remand in Melbourne’s west.<\/p>\n

The cafe owner denies stalking a young female chess professional for two years, including after she obtained a restraining order.<\/p>\n

Ghumman has outlined his custody conditions to a magistrate.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Victorian Supreme Court rejected Shumsheer Singh Ghumman’s bid for bail on September 23. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Police allege Ghumman’s actions twice coincided with the woman being detained briefly while travelling overseas.<\/p>\n

Media reports of the man’s bail application in September were followed by an alleged assault in Ravenhall Correctional Centre, his lawyer told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday.<\/p>\n

Michael Pena Rees said his client has type-2 diabetes but has refused food after the incident was “reported and nothing was done”.<\/p>\n

“He’s communicated his intention to complete the hunger strike until significant medical issues occur with him,” the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

Ghumman had been put into solitary confinement and only let out for one hour a day in handcuffs, Mr Pena Rees said.<\/p>\n

“The prison is not complying with their own policy on hunger strikes,” Ghumman, appearing via video link from prison, told the court.<\/p>\n

“I’m left in a cell. There’s a policy in place that they’re not adhering to.”<\/p>\n

His lawyer also complained about access to clean clothes and contact with other people, particularly his father.<\/p>\n

Ghumman was seen writing on a piece of paper during the hearing before he entered not guilty pleas to each of his 35 charges.<\/p>\n

They include stalking, intimidation, attempting to pervert the course of justice and possessing a pair of nunchucks.<\/p>\n

Allegations of cross-continental stalking\"An<\/p>\n

Police allege Ghumman emailed officials in Qatar about the woman, leading to her detention when she arrived at Doha International Airport (pictured). (Reuters: Hamad I Mohammed)<\/p>\n

Ghumman allegedly stalked the professional chess player, aged in her 20s, between April 2024 and May 2026.<\/p>\n

The woman obtained an intervention order against Ghumman in March 2025 but he allegedly continued to stalk her.<\/p>\n

Police alleged Ghumman emailed officials in Qatar about the woman, leading to her detention when she arrived at Doha International Airport.<\/p>\n

The woman was again detained after Ghumman allegedly contacted the Icelandic Chess Federation.<\/p>\n

The accused stalker also allegedly threatened to use artificial intelligence to surveil the woman and scrape her data from the dark web.<\/p>\n

Ghumman was arrested at his Burnley cafe in Melbourne’s east on May 1.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Supreme Court rejected his bid for bail on September 23.<\/p>\n

He will appear before the Victorian County Court for a mention on November 10.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A chess professional’s alleged stalker has vowed to continue a hunger strike until he suffers significant health issues.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[103125,43,3072,647,44,493281,138043,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-925559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chess","tag-headlines","tag-hunger-strike","tag-melbourne","tag-news","tag-shumsheer-singh-ghumman","tag-stalker","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}