Protesting Wrestlers Put Five Demands before Government, Want a Woman to Head WFI

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, June 7: Even as the talks remained inconclusive, the agitating wrestlers are learnt to have put up a five-point demand before the union sports minister Anurag Thakur including one to make a woman the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).

Wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia, and Satyawart Kadiyan had gone to Thakur’s residence in New Delhi to hold talks with him amid their ongoing protest demanding arrest of the current WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh accused of sexual misconduct with some female wrestlers.

It was the second meeting between the government and protesting wrestlers who had met the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday night. A delegation consisting of wrestlers and their coaches had met Amit Shah on late June 3 evening. The meeting had lasted for over two hours but could not resolve the crisis. “In the meeting, which lasted for around two hours, the wrestlers pressed for timely action and demanded an unbiased investigation, to which, the Home Minister told them to trust the process of investigation, which is still under way and the law shall take its course.”

“The protest movement hasn’t died down, it will continue. We have been strategising on how to take it forward,” Punia said. “The athletes aren’t satisfied with the government’s response, neither is the government agreeing to our demands.”

Within hours after Olympian wrestler Punia told a section of the media airing their dissatisfaction over talks with Amit Shah and that their protests against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh would continue unless action was taken on sexual harassment charges against him, Amit Shah invited the protesters for a second round of talks. In his interview Bajrang Punia had told the media on Monday that the protesters were asked by the government to keep their Saturday meeting with Amit Shah a secret. He also denied “any setting” with the Home Minister and said the protesters would not back down on their demands.

Sources say after the interview, Bajrang Punia received a phone call from Amit Shah, who invited the wrestlers to another meeting. Punia reportedly told the Home Minister that the wrestlers didn’t want any secretive meeting.

Soon after the phone call, Union Minister Anurag Thakur tweeted a formal invite for talks. In a post at 12.47 am on Wednesday, Thakur wrote: “The government is willing to have a discussion with the wrestlers on their issues. I have once again invited the wrestlers for the same.”

Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik held talks with Thakur on Tuesday in which they placed their five-point demand which included free and fair elections to the WFI and the appointment of a woman chief. They also said Brij Bhushan Singh or his family members cannot be part of the WFI. The wrestlers also want the police case filed against them over their protest last month on the day India’s new parliament building was inaugurated be scrapped. They have reiterated their demand for the arrest of Brij Bhushan Singh. Vinesh Phogat, a prominent face of the protest, is not attending the meeting as she is in her village Balali in Haryana to attend a pre-scheduled ‘panchayat’.

Earlier, a team of Delhi Police visited the residence of Brij Bhushan in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh to investigate the sexual harassment charges against him, officers said. They said the investigating police team questioned roughly a dozen employees and associates of Singh and recorded their statements. A source in the Delhi Police said the team visited Singh’s residence late on Monday and then again on Tuesday morning.

The wrestlers, who had launched their campaign against Brij Bhushan Singh in January and were assured of a probe, had resumed their protest on April 23 at Jantar Mantar, claiming that underage girls had been harassed by Singh and demanded his immediate arrest. They were removed from the protest site on May 28 and the police detained them after they began their march to the new parliament building without permission.

While the government is willing to accept most of their demands, the arrest of Singh, who is also a BJP MP and influential leader for the ruling party in UP, remains the bone of contention. The wrestlers had also resumed their duties with the Northern Railways, last week after the police removed them from Jantar Mantar and refused permission to resume the dharna at India Gate. Punia and Ms Malik work as special officers for the railways.

When the wrestlers re-joined their Railways jobs on Monday, two days after the meeting, there was speculation that the protest had ended. Punia emphatically denied it, clarifying that they had taken leave from work and had reported to the office for one day to sign in after they were evicted from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar protest site. “We haven’t gone back to our jobs since,” he said.

Seven women wrestlers, including a minor, have accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual harassment. In two FIRs, he has been accused of touching women athletes inappropriately on the pretext of checking their breath, groping them, asking inappropriate personal questions, and demanding sexual favours.

The wrestlers have demanded an impartial investigation and swift action against the wrestling body chief. The Delhi Police has reportedly questioned Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh twice and has recorded the statements of three to four Wrestling Federation of India members. Some staff members at Singh’s Delhi home have also been called in for questioning by the police, sources said.