new delhi olympic medallist sakshi malik and her husband wrestler satyawart kadian emphasised that their recent protest was not driven by political motives they clarified that despite facing harassment in the past they chose to remain silent because the wrestling community was not united at the timein a video shared on twitter kadian stated that there was a misrepresentation of their protest and they wished to clarify the situationprominent wrestlers in the country including sakshi malik vinesh phogat and bajrang punia came forward with allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation against brij bhushan sharan singh the outgoing chief of the wrestling federation of india wfi and a member of the bharatiya janata party bjpleaders from different political parties including congress priyanka gandhi delhi chief minister arvind kejriwal and former jk governor satya pal malik visited the protest site extending their support to the wrestlers before they were removed from jantar mantar on may 28kadian sitting beside malik said rumours were being spread about their protestlet me make it clear that our protest is not politicallymotivated we came to jantar mantar in january and permission was taken by two bjp leaders seeking police permission kadian said and asked malik to show the letter seeking permission for protestit was written by former wrestler babita phogat and teerath rana who are both associated with the bjpthis protest is not congress supported more than 90 per cent people in wrestling fraternity knew that for last 1012 years it harassment and intimidation has been going on a few people wanted to raise their voices but wrestling fraternity was not united he saidkadian who competes in heavyweight category reiterated that their fight is against the wfi chief and not against the governmentmalik said they were silent for years because wresters were not united you have seen that the minor has retracted her statement her family was intimidated these wrestlers come from poor families its not easy to muster courage to take on a powerful man the rio games bronze medallist saidkadian said the police brutality they faced on may 28 broke them the police had detained them and pushed them into buses an action that faced criticism from all quartersthe wrestlers were booked for violating law and order as they marched towards the new parliament building without permissionlet me make it clear that the call for mahila samman mahapanchayat was made by the khap leaders and we followed their order and faced police brutality that broke uswe won so many medals for country and our dignity was being trampled i cant explain in words what we went throughwe then decided to immerse medals in haridwar but one man from the tantra system grabbed bajrangs arm and took him to a corner and made him speak with many influential peopleif we had done that immersed medals there could have been violence so better sense prevailed we gave the medals to coaches and parentswe were not in a mental state to understand if theres a conspiracy we had