Protesting wrestlers tried to immerse their medals in Ganges, want to sit on a hunger strike at India Gate

The protesting wrestlers who were detained by Delhi Police on Sunday issued a statement that they wanted to immerse their medals in the river Ganges.

The elite wrestlers of the country which includes Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, and Sakshi Malik, among others, issued a joint statement where they said that they wanted to immerse their Olympic and World Championship medals in the river Ganges and follow it with a hunger strike ‘until death’ at the India Gate in New Delhi.

The development occurs after many of the wrestlers were harassed, manhandled, and detained by Delhi Police on Sunday. The wrestlers were trying to stage a peaceful demonstration and were marching towards the new Parliament building when police personnel intervened and detained them.

Clips of the incident went viral on social media and attracted plenty of criticism. Moreover, the wrestlers’ protest site at the Jantar Mantar and belongings were also destroyed by the police.

Sakshi Malik, a bronze medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, said in a statement on her Twitter handle that the wrestlers will go to Haridwar on Tuesday to immerse the medals in the holy river at 6 pm.

‍
"These medals are our life and soul. We are going to immerse them in the Ganges because she is Maa Ganga. After that, there is no point of living, so we will sit on a hunger strike until death at India Gate," she said in the statement written in Hindi.

Her compatriots Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia also issued same statements on their social media.

"We have won these medals with the same purity as the holy Ganga. These medals are holy for the entire country and there can't be a better place to keep them than in the holy Ganga rather than it acting as a mask for the unholy system which is siding with the wrongdoer," Sakshi said.

"India Gate is the place of those martyrs who sacrificed themselves for the country. We are not as holy as them but our emotions while playing at the international level are similar to those soldiers."
Sakshi said as the "system kept trying to scare the victims and stop the protest" instead of "catching the harasser", the wrestlers felt the medals have no value and wanted to return them.
She wished president Draupadi Murmu and PM Narendra Modi should have addressed this issue.
"We don't want these medals now because by making us wear them this shiny system is using it as a mask for its own publicity while exploiting us. If we speak against this exploitation it prepares to send us to jail."

Sakshi further added that the women wrestlers felt there's nothing left for them in this country as the "system has treated them cheaply".
"We're reminded of the moment when we won Olympic and World Championships medals. Now we feel why we won them, did we win them so that the system behaves so cheaply with us? They dragged us and then made us criminals.
"The way police behaved with us, how they arrested us with cruelty. We were doing our peaceful protest. Our protest site was also destroyed and snatched from us by the police. And the next day they lodged an FIR against us.
"Have the women wrestlers committed a crime by asking for justice after being sexually harassed? Police and system are behaving like we are criminals, whereas the actual harasser is making fun of us. They are making women wrestlers uncomfortable and laughing at them."

However, when the wrestlers reached Haridwar, they were stopped by farmer leader Naresh Tikait who took away their medals and asked for five days' time in order to intervene and seek a quick solution to their problems. Tikait is the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union and he arrived at Haridwar along with BKU volunteers to appease the wrestlers for the time being.

The scenes in the evening were emotional as top wrestlers, including Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia, reached there along with supporters in the evening and sat at Ganga Ghat for more than an hour with their medals in the hands and tears in the eyes.