Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers, on Sunday said that he was ready to be put through a lie-detector narco analysis test.
Singh, however, put up a condition that Olympic medal winner Bajrang Punia and Commonwealth Games gold medal winner Vinesh Phogat should also take the test.
In a narco analysis test, suspects are injected with a drug called sodium pentothal in an attempt to elicit a confession. The drug dissolves anxiety, thereby allowing them to speak without restrictions.
The country’s top wrestlers have been staging a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar since April 23, demanding Singh’s arrest. They have dared him to undergo the test after he denied all the allegations.
Two first information reports have been registered against him after the Supreme Court’s intervention. But Singh has refused to step down from his position in the wrestling body and accused the Congress and certain industrialists of instigating the agitation.
“If both the wrestlers are ready for their tests, they should call the media and make that announcement,” he wrote on Facebook on Sunday. “And I promise to them that I am also ready for it.”
Singh, who is also a Bharatiya Janata Party MP, at a meeting in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh claimed that people of all castes and religions are supporting him. “Even after four months, they do not have any audio, video or any other recording to prove allegations against me,” he claimed. “Story after story is being told. They should know that the whole country is angry today.”
On May 7, Singh had said he would hang himself if even one allegation against him was proven right, reported India Today. “I still stand by my words and promise the countrymen to remain firm forever,” he added.
Several other athletes as well as farmer bodies have extended their support to the protesting wrestlers.
After the protest began, the National Human Rights Commission issued notices to a host of national sports federations as well as the Union Sports Ministry and Sports Authority of India for failing to adhere to the requirements stated by the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act, 2013.
According to the Act, sports bodies are required to have an Internal Complaints Committee. This came after a report by The Indian Express revealed that 16 of 30 national sports federations do not fulfil the mandatory criteria, either by not meeting the required stipulations or by not having an Internal Complaints Committee altogether.
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