Top woman wrestler’s allegations corroborated only by 4 of 45 people examined: Delhi Police charge sheet

PTI, Jul 19, 2023, 9:38 AM IST

Delhi Police have examined 45 people while investigating the accusations of sexual harassment against WFI’s beleaguered boss Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh by a top woman wrestler but only four corroborated the allegations while the others denied having witnessed any such incident.

According to the charge sheet filed by the city police, the complainant claimed three sexual harassment incidents happened abroad and two in India.

All four who corroborated the charges are relatives of the complainant and two of them were part of the protest at Jantar Mantar.

While summarising the events under investigation, police said the accused is liable to be prosecuted and punished for offences under sections 354, 354-A (outraging the modesty of a woman) and 354-D (stalking) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Singh has consistently rejected the allegations and claimed he was “framed”.

One complaint is about the insult hurled at the woman wrestler by the accused and another is related to a show cause notice served to her by WFI.

According to the charge sheet, the accused touched the victim “inappropriately and put his hand on her breast and slid it down her stomach on the pretext of checking breathing” during the 2019 World Championship in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan.

During the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, the accused “hugged her very tightly and did not let her go for good 15-20 seconds and she had to protect her breast to prevent from groping.”

In another incident narrated by the complainant, Singh molested her during the 2016 World Championship in Mongolia. According to the charge sheet, the victim suffered abuse when she was in the dining area in the hotel and Singh touched her breast and stomach.

One alleged incident is about molestation inside the WFI office on October 16-17, 2017.

“The complainant was touched inappropriately on her palm, knee, thigh and shoulders without her consent,” the charge sheet said.

According to the charge sheet, it was WFI that provided technical evidence in the form of photographs and videos that established that the accused and the victim were at the same spot in most places when alleged incidents took place.

Police found the technical evidence “clearly supports” the allegation levelled by the complainant to the extent of the presence of the accused.

While four witnesses corroborated the alleged misconduct, Delhi police also wrote that, “In all 07 coaches, 02 Physiotherapists, 02 Masseuses, 01 Psychologist, 11 wrestlers, 03 referees, who were present or accompanied the women wrestlers during all the various Wrestling Championships were also examined, but all of them denied witnessing the alleged incidents”.

The complainant also alleged that the accused insulted her during the Commonwealth Games trials at Lucknow Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in 2022 by taking her name publically and saying that he is not angry with her and will talk to her later.

According to the charge sheet, “The Police officials visited the place, took into possession a pen drive that had ‘video recording’ but none of the witnesses supported the version of the victim.”

It was Sanjay Saraswat, the Executive Director of SAI Centre, Lucknow, who had provided the video of the event.

The charge sheet also mentions the version of the victim that she presented at the hearing conducted by the oversight committee constituted by the sports ministry to probe the allegations.

The CDRs (Call Detail Records) of the relevant people have bene obtained but so far nothing concrete has been established after going through them.