New Delhi: The wrestlers who have been protesting against BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said on Tuesday (May 30) that they will immerse all the medals they have won for India into the Ganga.
This is the wrestlers’ response to what transpired on Sunday (May 28). The protesters were roughed up and manhandled by the police, and detained for several hours. Meanwhile, the man they have accused of sexual harassment, Singh, was inside the new parliament building attending the inauguration ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The police also cleared the wrestlers’ protest site at Jantar Mantar, and have said they will not allow the wrestlers to return there.
While the police is yet to act in the two FIRs against Singh, including one under the POCSO Act, the authorities lost no times in filing cases of rioting against the protesting wrestlers on Sunday.
“The police and government are treating us like criminals,” the statement Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik shared on Twitter said.
— Vinesh Phogat (@Phogat_Vinesh) May 30, 2023
They did not return the medals, they said, because who would they return them to? “The President, who is a woman herself, sat barely two kilometres away and watched [on Sunday]. She didn’t say anything,” the statement says.
The wrestlers expressed particular grief that the prime minister had not showed them any concern. “Rather, he invited Brij Bhushan Singh to the inauguration of the new Parliament building. He even posed for photographs in bright white clothes. This brightness is stinging us,” the statement reads.
So at 6 pm today, the wrestlers said, they will go to Haridwar and immerse their medals in the Ganga. “These medals are our lives, our souls. There will be no reason to live after throwing them in the Ganga today. So, we will stage a hunger strike until death at India Gate after that. India Gate is the spot where we commemorate martyrs who gave up their lives for the country. We are not as pure as them, but when we played at the international stage, our feelings were the same as those of the soldiers,” the statement continues.
Several opposition leaders and some athletes had expressed anger and concern at the Delhi Police’s actions on Sunday.