A court has summoned a wrestler to record her evidence as a witness-victim in the sexual harassment case against former BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in Delhi.
The victim witness wrestler will depose against Singh before the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasiya on November 14.
“The court noted that the wrestler, also a victim-witness, was summoned earlier but had not turned up to depose as she was out of the country for a wrestling championship for two months,” a Delhi police officer said.
Charges have been framed against Brij Bhushan Singh under IPC Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 354A (sexual harassment).
Singh, who was never arrested in the case, had pleaded not guilty before the court soon after the charges were framed.
The Delhi police filed the chargesheet in June last year after some of the country’s top men and women wrestlers protested for weeks at Jantar Mantar, braving the elements and police highhandedness, to press for Singh’s arrest.
Several retired IPS officers had then accused the Delhi police of compromising the probe because of “political interference”, and underlined that the FIRs were registered only after a prod from the Supreme Court. They also questioned why Singh was never arrested.
While the chargesheet was filed in connection with the first FIR, lodged on complaints from six adult women wrestlers, the police submitted a closure report before another court in relation to the second FIR, based on a now-withdrawn complaint from a minor wrestler.
The 1,500-page chargesheet against Singh, for alleged sexual harassment, assault and stalking of six women wrestlers, mentions the testimonies of 108 witnesses, of whom 15 — including wrestlers, coaches and referees — corroborated the allegations of the six wrestlers.
