With the wrestlers having put their agitation on hold, the minor wrestler’s father who filed a police complaint against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, said he deliberately filed “a false case against him due to anger”.
However, he also told The Hindu on Thursday that he was threatened by people whose names he couldn’t reveal and “his family is living in intense fear”.
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Based on the complaint, an FIR was filed against Mr. Singh on April 28 at Connaught Place police station under IPC sections 354, 354(A), 354(D), 34 and section 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The minor’s father, also the complainant, in the FIR had narrated in detail several instances when his daughter was allegedly sexually harassed by the WFI chief. He had claimed that Mr. Singh had “touched her inappropriately” and asked her to “support him, if she needed his support”.
He also alleged that Mr. Singh had discriminated against his daughter. “To my utter shock, my daughter was hugely discriminated against,” he had said in the FIR.
However, after multiple reports claimed that the girl had withdrawn the complaint, her father told The Hindu that they recorded a fresh statement denying any incident of sexual harassment. However, he said they have not withdrawn the complaint where they have claimed that Mr. Singh discriminated against his daughter.
He said, “We have not taken back any complaint, we have just recorded another statement before the magistrate on June 5, where we have alleged that he discriminated against her when it came to wrestling, and he did not sexually harass her.”
On being asked why he filed the false case, the girl’s father said “he was fuelled by anger against him because his daughter lost in last year’s trial match”. “We are telling the truth so that it comes out while investigation is under way,” he added.
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Elaborating, he said, “My daughter was deliberately made to lose because of the staff that was on duty and the opponent, and everybody hailed from Delhi, which isn’t right according to the rules. I did complain regarding the discrimination to the Federation, but nobody heard me.”
He said he was angry. “I felt disheartened and I was angry and why shouldn’t I be? Mr. Singh was biased against her, I had to sell my house to train my daughter. We only had three options: to get her married, educated or get her into sports. Now, we don’t know what her future will be.”
“I understand that we made a mistake and we would like to rectify it,” he said, adding that the referee’s decision, in the trial match, was influenced by Mr. Singh.
‘Changed my statement because I was scared’
However, he also revealed he was living in fear and was threatened. “I changed my statement in court not because of greed but because I was scared... scared for my family, daughter and myself. Many lives have changed since we raised the allegations. I have to face the society and the people, I was threatened by people, whose names I can’t reveal, my family is living in intense fear. If anything happens to me or my daughter, how will we live?” he told The Hindu.
On Mr. Singh, the minor’s father said that he has “nothing against him, apart from the anger over how his daughter was treated”.
“I will continue to stand with the wrestlers, who have always supported us since day one. What happened to the women is wrong,” he said.
“The police complaint that we have given, is somewhat true and partly false and we’ve cleared everything that is right and wrong,” he said.
Asked about allegations that his daughter isn’t a minor, he asserted that she is a minor and that they have provided the investigators with “legal documents pertaining to her identity”.
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