Two days after India’s top wrestlers were detained by Delhi Police and had FIRs slapped against them, India’s top wrestlers like Rio 2016 bronze medallist Sakshi Malik, Tokyo 2020 medallist Bajrang Punia and world championship medallist Vinesh Phogat have said they will ‘immerse’ their Olympic and world medals in the Ganga at Haridwar on Tuesday as a way of protesting the high-handedness of the police. The wrestlers also said they will sit on a fast unto death at New Delhi’s India Gate.
“These medals are our life and soul. After we ‘immerse’ them in River Ganga, there would be no meaning for us to live. So we will got to India Gate and sit on a fast unto death,” the wrestlers said in a statement.
The wrestlers, who had been protesting at the Jantar Mantar, were marching to the new Parliament building on Sunday to hold a women’s ‘Mahapanchayat’ outside the Parliament as it was being inaugurated. But they were detained by the Delhi Police on the way. Later the police registered FIRs against them and cleared out their protest site at Jantar Mantar. When the wrestlers were being detained, they resisted, leading to dramatic images where wrestlers were being grabbed and lifted by multiple policewomen and put into buses.
“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,” a statement posted on social media by all three wrestlers read.
“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 added.
The statement further added: “We considered who to return the medals to. Should we give our medals to the President, who is a woman herself? She was barely two kms away from us but said nothing about our plight. Then we thought should we return them to the Prime Minister, who calls us his daughters? But no, not once has he asked us how we have been doing since we started protesting. In fact, the man we are protesting against, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh was invited to the inauguration of the news Parliament.
Source: The Indian Express