Wrestlers’ Protest: Sakshi Malik, husband address rumours surrounding demonstration | WATCH

Two days after the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik and her wrestler husband Satyawart Kadian addressed rumours surrounding the grapplers’ protest.

From political shades of their demonstration to the support they’ve received from different facets of society, the duo spoke at length in the 11-minute long video captioned ‘The Truth’ posted on Malik’s Twitter.

The wrestlers denied any involvement of the Indian National Congress in their protest, stating, ‘When we began our protest in January, the permission for the Jantar Mantar sit-in was undertaken by leaders of the ruling BJP, Tirth Rana and Babita Phogat. How can Congress be the instigator of our protest then?’

Relating Phogat and Rana’s involvement, Kadian argued that the wrestlers are not protesting against the government, ‘Our fight cannot be against the government, because Brij Bhushan is from the ruling party and those who took permission for the January protest are also from the BJP.’

They said that their fight is against Brij Bhushan because he misused his position to wrong several wrestlers.

The wrestlers have alleged sexual harassment by Brij Bhushan with incidents dating back to 2012, addressing questions of why they kept quiet for so long, Kadian said, ‘We wanted to speak up sooner but there was a lack of unit among the wrestling community.’

He added that if someone tried to speak up individually, the then WFI chief would come to know about it and hindrances would begin to crop up in the said person’s career.

Malik said that for the wrestlers, coming from humble backgrounds, fighting against a powerful man like Brij Bhushan, was not feasible.

Further in their video, Kadian and Malik spoke about the May 28 detention of the wrestlers and how disturbed they were after the incident.

They even appeared to distance themselves from the farmer unions that have extended immense support to the grapplers’ community.

Two days after they were detained and then released, the wrestlers had decided to immerse their medals into the Ganga river in Haridwar.

According to Kadian, the wrestlers were made to wait till 7 PM that day because ‘their issue was being discussed by top politicians’.

After several hours, the grapplers were eventually dissuaded from the immersion.

Following which, visuals showed them handing over their medals to farmer leader Naresh Tikait.

However, in the video Kadian claims, ‘We returned our medals to our parents and coaches. We don’t know what was going on at that time.’

Towards the end of the video, the pair also spoke about rumours of farmer unions being upset with the wrestlers, ‘Now we are hearing that Khaps are upset with us. I request everyone to steer clear of rumours, please forgive us if we have hurt anyone even unintentionally.’

In conclusion, they thanked several political leaders for supporting their protest, including former J&K governor Satyapal Malik, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad, BJP leaders Tirth Rana and Babita Phogat.

Also Watch: What are the evidences against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in sexual harassment case?