Arrest the former WFI head or the Khap leaders would march to Delhi
A mahapanchayat of clan-based groups from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Delhi demanded Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s arrest on Friday due to allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation. They threatened to march to the Capital if their demand was not met by June 9.
Representatives from over 170 khaps demanded the dismissal of all charges against the wrestlers who were staging the protest during the roughly five-and-a-half-hour mahapanchayat that took place in Kurukshetra, Haryana. They also threatened to take the protesters to Jantar Mantar in Delhi if the government did not comply with their demands.
On May 28, the wrestlers’ sit-in at Jantar Mantar was cleared by Delhi Police, and they were taken into custody following an altercation with security guards who attempted to prevent them from moving to the newly inaugurated Parliament building. The wrestlers who had been protesting were then charged under many sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.
“Until June 9, the federal government has time. Anything less than the arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh would not be tolerated by us. Rakesh Tikait, a spokesman for the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), warned that if this does not occur, the organisation would go to Jantar Mantar on June 9 and hold panchayats all across the country.
“The cases against the wrestlers should be dropped, and Singh must be taken into custody,” he said.
The mahapanchayat on Friday was the second of those two days. Similar discussions took place on Wednesday in Muzaffarnagar, when the khaps made the decision to inform President Droupadi Murmu about the demands of the wrestlers. The protesting wrestlers did not belong to either of the two mahapanchayats.
Tikait’s remarks came three days after his brother and BKU chief Naresh Tikait persuaded Olympic bronze medalists Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik, and Vinesh Phogat—who together have 45 senior international medals—to postpone dousing their medals in the Ganga in front of historically significant crowds on the Ganga’s banks in Haridwar.
The wrestlers are calling for the arrest of Singh, a BJP member from Kaiserganj who has governed Indian wrestling for 12 years, on charges of sexually harassing athletes, at least one of them is a kid. Singh has refuted the accusations, retaliated against the wrestlers, and even claimed that each of their medals is worth $15. The wrestlers have requested that he be detained right away despite the fact that he has been expelled from WFI and is now on suspension and that two FIRs have been filed against him.
“We had asked the protesting wrestlers, who are now unhappy, for five days. The wrestlers informed us that nothing had changed despite their giving us the opportunity. The administration has asked us for negotiations, but we requested additional time from them, Rakesh Tikait said.
He also asked for protection for the wrestlers who were protesting and their families.
As one of the mahapanchayat’s primary decision-makers, Chaudhary Surender Solanki, the chairman of Delhi’s Palam 360 Khap, stated: “We want all accusations against wrestlers to be withdrawn. They have the democratic right to demonstrate.
When several members of the mahapanchayat protested that they were not given the opportunity to speak on the wrestlers’ complaint, a fight broke out at the meeting. Tikait said that an effort was made to scuttle the negotiations, but it ultimately failed.
