Holding a press conference at the protest site, Vinesh and Sakshee, who along with Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Bajrang Punia are demanding the arrest of Singh – a BJP strongman and six-time Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh – accused of sexually harassing the seven wrestlers, including a minor, informed that they will send handwritten letters as well as emails to female BJP MPs from Monday to press for their demand for justice . The two showed an identical letter written separately to the union’s Finance Minister and Karnataka BJP MP Rajya Sabha, Nirmala Sitharamanand Union Minister for Women and Children Development and Minority Affairs and MP for Lok Sabha from Amethi Constituency, Smriti Zubin Irani. The letter was written to the 43 female BJP MPs. The wrestlers’ protest entered its 22nd day on Sunday.
“It has been 22 days since we started the sit-in and so far no female MPs from the ruling BJP have come to meet us or support us in our fight. So we have decided to send handwritten letters as well as emails to female BJP MPs imploring them to join us in our fight for justice,” said Vinesh, the reigning Asian Games and CWG champion.
“Your party is talking about beti padhao, beti bachao. We are the girls of India too and we are fighting for our dignity. Our friends from the wrestling community will deliver the letters to their homes and we will also email them Probably, our voice does not reach women parliamentarians, so we thought of reaching out to them. This is a battle for every girl who fights for justice,” she added.
In the letter, which was written under the banner of ‘Wrestlers Sangharsh Samiti, Jantar Mantar’, the restless grapplers wrote: ‘We women wrestlers of India have been sexually assaulted by the President of WFI. During his long period of presidency, wrestlers were repeatedly sexually assaulted by him. Sometimes wrestlers tried to raise their voices but his power ruined the future of wrestlers and forgot justice. Now, then let the water rise above the nose (a lot of water flowed under the bridge), we had no other way out but to fight for the dignity of women wrestlers. We left our life behind and our sports and decided to fight for our dignity.We have been fighting for justice for 20 days in Jantar Mantar.According to our observations, his power has not only broken the backbone of the administration but also made our government deaf and blind Being a female member of parliament from the ruling party, we have a lot of hope from you and ask you to help us. become our voice for justice and save our dignity. We also hope you can spare some time to reach Jantar Mantar to guide us.” The separate letter to Sitharaman and Irani was jointly signed by Vinesh and Sakshee.
Meanwhile, Bajrang hailed the Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) decision to let an ad hoc committee take full control of the federation and called it a “big step” towards victory for the wrestlers. “This is our first victory in the battle for justice. The whole federation has been dissolved, which marks a great start for us. Our fight will continue until justice is served,” he said. On Friday, the AIO had asked the secretary general of the federation to hand over official documents, including financial instruments, to its ad hoc panel, specifying that the outgoing officers will have no role in the functioning of the WFI.
