Picture Credit: Twitter
After getting detained by Delhi Police and having FIRs registered against them, the top Indian protesting wrestlers have said that they will throw their medals in the Ganga river in Haridwar, Uttarakhand on May 30, Tue s day at 6 PM. Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, and Bajrang Punia released a statement earlier today, in which they gave a detail account of how the police had manhandled them while they were peacefully protesting at Jantar Mantar on May 28, against the President of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. They have alleged that he has sexually harassed the women wrestlers during his tenure at the top job and managed to get two separate FIRs levelled on him.
The protesting wrestlers also vowed to sit on a fast at the India Gate in New Delhi until death, after putting their medals in the Ganga on Tuesday evening. Some of the prominent sporting events where these three Indian wrestlers have won their international medals are Olympic Games, World Championships, Asian Games, and Commonwealth Games, among others.
The statement from all the three top Indian medal winning wrestlers on their official Twitter account read, “All of you saw whatever happened on May 28. The way we were treated and detained by the police. The police not only cleared out our protest area at Jantar Mantar, but also registered FIRs against us, despite the fact that we were protesting peacefully. Have female athletes committed some crime by asking for justice for the sexual harassment committed against them? We have been treated like criminals.”
“Meanwhile, the culprit (Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh) has been mocking us in open gatherings. He has been accepting the action committed against women’s wrestlers on TV to make them feel embarrassed, while turning their entire ordeal into a joke. He is also talking about getting the POCSO Act changed in the open,” the statement went on.
“We feel like there’s nothing left in this country. When we think of the moments we won Olympic and world championship medals for the country, we’re wondering why we won. We feel there’s no meaning to the medals hanging around our necks,” the statement from the top protesting wrestlers further added.
