No FIR after two days, elite wrestlers begin protest again

NEW DELHI: India’s top wrestlers, including Olympic medallists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik and double World Championships medallist Vinesh Phogat, on Sunday resumed their protest at the Jantar Mantar in the national capital after no action was taken on their complaints of sexual harassment against the Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

“The players have been repeatedly saying that they have been subjected to harassment. An FIR should have been lodged and action must be taken against the accused. We are sitting here after putting everything — our game and our family’s life on stake,” Sakshi Malik said while speaking to the media persons. She said that for the past three months, they are passing through an “extreme mental torture” just to get justice for their fellow players.”This is the question of the dignity of women players. Our girls bring medals at international levels and if they are not safe in this country then we can easily assume the condition of other girls,” Malik said.

According to the protesting wrestlers, just two days ago, around six-seven women wrestlers had given a complaint of sexual harassment at the Connaught Place police station against Singh. However, they were peeved with the outcome so far as even after two days, no FIR was registered in the matter. The wrestlers also pointed out that the report of the oversight committee formed by the sports ministry too was not satisfactory. They said that, despite their repeated request, they have not been given an audience by the sports minister.

“You too know that the person against whom we are fighting, how strong he is, we do not know who all are helping him. We are just demanding justice from the people and the top Court of this country,” said Malik. The wrestlers have said that they will not leave Jantar Mantar until Singh is arrested as they continued their protest in the night as well.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also received a complaint from the women wrestlers regarding their sexual harassment after which the women’s body issued a notice to the Delhi Police asking it the reasons for the delay in registering an FIR.

“The complainant has stated that when she called SHO, Connaught Place to enquire about the status of the complaint on April 22, she was informed by him that no FIR has been filed and that action shall be taken on the complaint post Monday. She further stated that when she asked him for assurance that the FIR shall be filed by Monday, he answered that he could not guarantee the same,” the Commission said.
The DCW further said that instead of an FIR being filed in the matter, some of the complainants and their family members have started getting phone calls enquiring about the identities of the complainants from an IPS officer posted in Department of Sports, MYAS.

“It is very unfortunate that the women wrestlers are not able to register their FIR of sexual harassment. They have submitted complaints to Delhi Police, still no FIR has been registered. I have issued a notice to Delhi Police and have sought a report,” DCW chief Swati Maliwal said.She said that an FIR must be registered immediately and the accused must be arrested. “Action must be taken against police officers for failing to register their FIR even after passing of 2 days,” the DCW chief added.

The sports ministry formed an oversight committee to look into the allegations of the protesting wrestlers in January. The OC, with Olympic and multiple World Championships gold medallist MC Mary Kom as its head, completed its hearing and submitted the report to the sports ministry in March. However, even after three months, the ministry has not made the report public. While speaking to this daily recently, Bajrang had said they were not happy with the report.

“A news report recently claimed that one of the members of the oversight committee, which was constituted by the sports ministry to probe the allegations, was not in agreement with its final report. It indicates something suspicious is being done either by the committee or the ministry. Someone is doing something wrong,” the 2020 Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist told this daily.

Bajrang asked how one could trust the report if a committee member was not involved in the report submission and disagreed with the report. “We were not even informed that the report was submitted to the ministry,” he added.

Bajrang also told this daily 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 would get to decide who is right or wrong.

The sports ministry, meanwhile, did not want to respond but sources in the ministry said that it kept in mind the athletes’ interest. The ministry felt that they could not have met because the report was yet to be made public as it would have been seen as partisan for the government to meet any of the athletes and shown them as trying to influence the probe.There is no response from the WFI as yet.