Abhay 'Xhade' Urkude, India's overnight Valorant star, was handed an ID ban recently, Riot is investigating the matter.
Update, 28 January 2021: Xhade was permanently banned from all future Riot events. TEC is expected to announce this officially very soon.
Xhade is one of the most valuable players of ParaTroops Valorant roster. The team participated in the TEC Invitational and was placed in the third position after defeating XTZ Esports.
Xhade was to play against Godlike Esports for a chance to advance to the finals. However, he was handed an ID ban before the match. ParaTroops were allowed to play with a substitute but they lost.
The Esports Club told that they were in touch with Riot to know the exact details for the ban. ParaTroops were allowed to play with a substitute due to the probability of a false alarm.
The Esports Club further said that they will disqualify the team from all future tournaments if the player was convicted to be exploiting the game.
I am not a hacker: Xhade
We reached out to Xhade for his comment, and this is what he has to say, "I woke up just like a normal day and logged into my account for warmup, and I saw that prompt of Permanent Suspension for [the] usage of third party software, 30 minutes before the match."
About using any software that interferes with the game directly he said, "I never used any third-party application. I only use Exitlag, Discord, and OBS for streaming." Xhade further added, "All I wanna say is, I am not a hacker. I have been playing games for 10 years. I have been fully dedicated to gaming stuff and esports, even my parents support me. Why would I do such things? I am literally tired of proving [to] people that I ain't doing anything [wrong]."
Other pro players have been the victim of false alarm bans
In one incident, Japanese pro Zepher was banned by Vanguard mid match, only to be reinstated later. Riot had said, "It was determined that Zepher's ban was applied by error. We have already completed the reinstatement of the account. We have also reviewed other accounts that have been affected by this error, and have reinstated the accounts that have been misused."
Zepher選手に対しての誤ったBAN適用について pic.twitter.com/o96KHnTnTW
— VALORANT // JAPAN (@VALORANTjp) July 8, 2020
Xhade is a key player for ParaTroops
Xhade was one of the key players against XTZ Esports in the TEC Invitational where he picked 39 kills to help the team get past XTZ Esports. Xhade had become an overnight star and fans were waiting for his action against Godlike Esports today.
Riot is yet to reveal their findings on things, and we hope it was a false alarm.