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Sakshi Malik tearfully held her Olympic medal close to her chest as she prepared to immerse it in the waters of the Ganges River on Tuesday as part of an ongoing fight against sexual harassment in Indian wrestling. The 30-year-old became India’s first female wrestler to win an Olympic medal in 2016, but seven years later, Malik, along with a group of Indian wrestlers, is calling for the arrest of Brij Bhushan Singh, the head of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and an influential Member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party—whom they allege of pervasive sexual misconduct over the years. (Singh has denied the allegations.)
“For us, our medals are sacred, and so is the river Ganges,” the wrestlers said in an official statement on Tuesday. “This holy river is the perfect custodian of our medals, not the system that shields the offender.”
The dramatic scenes continued to unfold in the holy city of Haridwar in northern India until Naresh Tikait, an influential farm union leader, met with the wrestlers later on Tuesday to convince them to postpone the medal immersion until next week. “Because of them, we hold our head high in the international sports arena,” Tikait told the local press.
On Tuesday night, the controversy escalated further when United World Wrestling (UWW) officially condemned the treatment of Indian wrestlers and called on authorities to “conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the allegations.” The governing body also reminded the Indian Olympic Association to hold fresh elections for a new leader of WFI within 45 days, as it had promised in April, and warned that failing to do so may lead UWW to “suspend” the federation and force the athletes “to compete under a neutral flag.”
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