New Delhi: India wrestler Bajrang Punia said on Sunday that wrestlers would continue their protest against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and its president Brijbhushan Sharan Singh till the latter is arrested. Top Indian wrestlers like Sakshee, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat are back at Jantar Mantar to protest against the WFI for alleged sexual harassment and mistreatment of wrestlers, especially women wrestlers.
‘We won’t leave from here until Brij Bhushan is arrested’, Punia said at the protest. Top Indian wrestlers, including Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Ravi Dahiya, and Sakshi Malik, held a sit-in protest in Jantar Mantar in January this year, demanding that Brij Bhushan be removed from the head office and Wrestling Federation of India be disbanded. They had accused the body and its chief of sexual harassment and mistreatment of wrestlers. Punia said on Sunday that the wrestlers will be holding a press conference at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and give details about the legal process in their dispute against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). ‘We are going to do a press conference at 4 pm on Jantar Mantar, we have moved forward now through a legal process and will brief everything there’, Bajrang told ANI.
Following the protest, in January, the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the formation of an ‘oversight committee’ to probe allegations levelled against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and its chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and other coaches. The committee was given the task of submitting a report on the issue to the ministry. Olympic medalist Mary Kom is heading the Oversight Committee. Former wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, former shuttler Trupti Murgunde, SAI member Radhica Sreeman, ex-CEO of the Target Olympic Podium Plan Rajesh Rajagopalan, and CWG gold medalist Babita Phogat are the other members of the Mary Kom-led committee.
But earlier in April, Punia had said that the wrestlers will go to court to protest against the report of the oversight committee appointed to investigate the matter and allegations put up by prominent Indian wrestlers against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and its president Brijbhushan Sharan Singh. ‘I read an article in which one of the committee members said that the report has been submitted to the Sports ministry without his signatures. The member also expressed his/her disagreement with the report. If a committee member is not involved in report submission and disagrees with the report, how are we supposed to trust it? We were not even informed that the report was submitted to the ministry’, Punia said.
Punia also said that WFI should make public the statements given by female wrestlers in a sting operation to a private TV channel if it feels it is innocent and also, people get to decide who is right or wrong. The wrestler said that they (wrestlers) will start protesting once again and will even go to the high court as soon as possible. ‘We have to carry on with our sport, but we will protest and go to the high court as soon as possible’, Punia said.
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