India's top wrestlers, who had been protesting against the chief of Wrestlers Federation of India (WFI), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, said they will be immersing their hard-earned medals in River Ganga in Haridwar on Tuesday evening.
The wrestlers include Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat who declared to immerse their medal in the river at 6pm today.
According to reports, the protesting wrestlers said that after immersing their medals, they would sit on hunger strike at India Gate.
In a joint statement, the wrestlers said, “You saw everything that happened on May 28, how police treated us and the way they arrested us. We were protesting peacefully, our place has been taken away and the next day serious cases and FIR were filed against us. Have the wrestlers committed any crimes by demanding justice for the sexual harassment that happened to them? The police and the system are treating us like criminals, while the oppressor is taking jibe moving freely. He is even openly talking about changing the POCSO Act.”
“Yesterday, many of our women wrestlers were hiding in the fields. The system should arrest the oppressor but it is engaged in breaking and intimidating the victim women to end their protest,” they said.
“It is not less than death for us thinking of returning medals but how can we live compromising our self-respect? We don't need these medals anymore. If we speak against exploitation, they prepare to put us in jail. We are going to shed these medals in the Ganga. Our medals which we earned after hard work are as sacred as River Ganga. These medals are sacred for the entire country and the right place to keep the sacred medal can be holy Ganga and not our unholy system which masquerades us and stands with our oppressor after taking advantage of us. The medal is our life, our soul. We will sit on hunger strike at India gate till death,” the statement added.
