Boxing great MC Mary Kom is set to lead a five-member oversight committee to run the day-to-day affairs of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and supervise the probe into the sexual harassment charges against its president and BJP Lok Sabha MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
The committee will run the daily affairs of the WFI for the next one month. Brij Bhushan Singh has been asked to step aside as the chief of the national body till the probe concludes.
The announcement was made by Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur. Other members of the panel include Olympic medallist wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, former badminton player and Mission Olympic Cell member Trupti Murgunde, ex-TOPS CEO Rajagopalan and former SAI executive director of teams Radhika Sreeman, news agency ANI tweeted.
“Oversight Committee has been formed today. Mary Kom will head the Oversight Committee. For the coming month, the committee will investigate the allegations put up by the wrestlers,” ANI quotes Thakur having told the media in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.
The committee was formed in the wake of an unprecedented three-day sit-in protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, led by world champions and Olympic medalists, including Vinesh Phogat, Yogeshwar Dutt, Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Ravi Dahiya, among others.
On Saturday, Anurag Thakur announced the formation of the committee following three days of the wrestlers’ protest. Thakur said that the government had heard from all wrestlers on allegations of sexual harassment against the WFI president and coaches
Meanwhile, the government has suspended WFI official Vinod Tomar and has also suspended all activities till the wrestlers’ claims are investigated.
Brij Bhushan Singh’s cook withdraws court plea
And in another (thankfully short-lived) twist to this sordid saga, Brij Bhushan Singh’s cook (no less), Vicky, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court on Monday, 23 January, seeking FIRs against the protesting wrestlers. The interesting part of this development is not that said cook withdrew his plea (his handlers seeing the outlandish optics that the move represented?), but that the court was actually ready to list the case for hearing next week.
For the record, Vicky’s court filing had accused the wrestlers of “extortion and blackmailing by making allegations of sexual assault”.
Vicky’s “malik” Brij Bhushan Singh, meanwhile, took to Twitter to deny any association with a petition filed on his behalf.
“No petition has been submitted by me or any authorised person associated with me against the Delhi government, the protesting wrestlers and news channels,” he tweeted. “I have not authorised any advocate, law agency or representative to file any petition in any court of law.”
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