Protesting wrestlers to throw their medals into the Ganga, start indefinite fast

The wrestlers said they could not surrender their medals to the Prime Minister as he ‘did not take care of the daughters of his house’.
Protesting wrestlers to throw their medals into the Ganga, start indefinite fast
Protesting wrestlers to throw their medals into the Ganga, start indefinite fast
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After being manhandled and detained by the Delhi police on the inaugural day of the new Parliament building, protesting Indian wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia have said that they will immerse their Olympic medals in Ganga river in Haridwar at 6 pm on Tuesday, May 30. In a statement issued on Tuesday by Sakshi Malik, the Olympians have said they will sit on a fast unto death after throwing the medals into the Ganga. “After we let these medals go, the purpose of our lives will flow away with them. And so, we will sit on a hunger strike until death at India Gate. We will always be indebted to this great nation,” the statement said. It also said that they could not surrender their medals to the Prime Minister as he ‘did not take care of the daughters of his house’. “Rather, our oppressor was invited to the inauguration of the new Parliament and he was posing for photographs in bright white clothes,” Sakshi said.

The three wrestlers have been protesting for nearly a month seeking the arrest of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan. The BJP MP faces accusations of sexually harassing athletes, including a minor. 

Sakshi further said, “You all saw what happened on 28th May. How the police treated us. How brutally we were arrested. We were doing a peaceful movement. The place of our agitation was also vandalised by the police and snatched away from us, and the next day an FIR was lodged against us. Have women wrestlers committed any crime 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 cracking down on us in open meetings.” 

The Delhi Police on Sunday detained Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia, and several wrestlers who attempted to march towards the new Parliament during its inauguration, seeking justice. The heartbreaking visuals showed the athletes who brought glory to India, being dragged away and overpowered by the police. Further, they even filed cases against them under several sections for sitting in protest at Jantar Mantar. The incident was condemned by many Opposition parties.

Pointing out that Brij Bhushan wants to even amend the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, she said that the women wrestlers are feeling hopeless and have nothing left in this country. 

“Now it seems that these medals that adorned our necks have no meaning left. We were feeling death just thinking of returning them, but what to live even after compromising our self-respect. The question came as to whom to return. To our President, who herself is a woman. But our conscience did not allow it, because she was just 2 km away from us and just kept watching but did not say anything.”

“Where is our place in this shining system, where is the place of daughters of India? Have we become mere slogans or just an agenda to come to power?”

The statement also said, “We are going to shed these medals into the Ganga, because as holy as we consider the Ganga, that is how holy our hard work was in getting these medals. These medals are sacred for the whole nation and the right place to place these sacred medals can only be in Mother Ganga, and not in our unholy system that after using us as a mask and taking advantage of us now stands in support of our harasser. Medal is our life, our soul. After they get washed away in the Ganges, there will be no point in our living.”

Sakshi said that after discarding their medals, their life will have no meaning and because of it they will sit on a fast unto death at India Gate. “India Gate is the place of our martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the country. We are not sacred like them, but while playing at the international level, our feelings were also like those soldiers.

The unholy system is doing its work and we are doing ours. Now people will have to think whether they are standing with these daughters of theirs or with that strong whitewashed system which is harassing these daughters.”

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