New Delhi: Sakshi Malik, the 2016 Olympic Games bronze medallist, has reached Haridwar where she has said she would throw her medal into the river Ganga as the wrestlers’ protest intensified against the former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
India’s top wrestlers including Olympic and World medallists Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik on Tuesday said that they would immerse their medals in Ganga after being detained by the Delhi Police.
In a statement on Twitter, the wrestlers mentioned that they will let go of their medals in Ganga at 6 pm and will sit on an indefinite hunger strike at India Gate.
“It seems that these medals decorated around our necks have no meaning any more,” read a statement in Hindi, tweeted out by top athletes. “The police and the system are treating us as criminals while the harasser openly attacks us in public meetings,” read the statement tweeted by wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat.
In the message, the wrestlers said they wondered who they’d return the medals to. “The President, who is a woman herself, sat barely two kilometres away and watched. She didn’t say anything,” it read, referring to Sunday’s crackdown on the protesters that took place as Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament.
