SONIPAT (India): An Olympic wrestler on Saturday criticised the pace of a police inquiry into sexual harassment accusations against the chief of India’s national wrestling body.

Vinesh Phogat, a two-time Olympian who has accused Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexually abusing her, said she has also been hurt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue.

Phogat, who is the first Indian female wrestler to win both the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games gold, is one of seven female athletes to have lodged a police case against Singh accusing him of sexually harassing them.

Singh, who is also a federal lawmaker from Modi’s ruling party, has denied allegations of making sexual advances, groping and threatening female athletes if they refused to meet him alone.

“I have only felt a deep sense of humiliation since I mustered the courage to say that I have been molested by a powerful man,” Phogat told Reuters in her first interview since she and fellow wrestlers were forced out of a protest site by the police last month.

In her police complaint, Phogat said she contemplated suicide after the “mental trauma” but felt reinvigorated after a 2021 meeting with Modi, who promised to look into the complaints by the female wrestlers. “It’s been emotionally draining, the PM has not said anything about this case,” Phogat said.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2023