NEW DELHI: Indian sports on Wednesday was rocked by serious allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation by the country’s leading women wrestlers, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik, who jointly accused ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) member of parliament and wrestling federation’s (WFI) chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, of sexually exploiting several women grapplers at national camps for years.
Vinesh, a double World Championships medallist and a three-time CWG gold winner, also accused Singh of indirectly issuing death threats to her through some influential WFI office-bearers after she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally along with her family in October 2021 on her return from Tokyo Olympics and discussed the difficulties faced by the Indian wrestlers rising up the ranks, WFI’s irrational selection policies and the federation’s high-handedness faced by some of the leading wrestlers.
