The protest by wrestlers against alleged sexual harassment by Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh continued for the seventh day on Jantar Mantar Road here on Saturday.

The protest, led by champion wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshee Malikkh and Bajrang Punia, is to demand that Singh, the BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Kaiserganj, be removed from his WFI post and arrested. Their agitation had been suspended in January after Singh had briefly disassociated himself from the day-to-day functioning of the federation pending a probe ordered by the Centre.

The protest, which resumed last week, is continuing despite Delhi police on Friday filing two FIRs under pressure from the Supreme Court. The petitioners said they had neither received a copy of the FIR, nor a copy of the findings of the oversight committee led by boxer and former MP M.C. Mary Kom.

Punia had on Friday night posted a video on Instagram in which he alleged that electricity to the protest tent had been cut off by the police, who had also disallowed food, water and mattresses from being brought in.

Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Singh, whom the wrestlers have accused of sexual harassment of athletes, interacts with the media at his residence in Bishnoharpur village at Gonda on Saturday. PTI

He told reporters: “The police said that if you want to protest, sleep on the road. What kind of pressure has come on them today, there was no such problem before, this has happened only because of the pressure of the Supreme Court.”

Malikkh has stayed put at the venue despite running a fever.

The Opposition as well as civil society groups have united in their support to the protest and many supporters have flocked to the venue. The protesters had said on Friday that they would decide their future course of action after speaking to elders and that they could not take the police’s word without reading the fine print of the FIRs.

Singh remained defiant. He told reporters in Uttar Pradesh’s Bishnoharpur on Saturday: “I want an unbiased probe by the Supreme Court and Delhi police and that the investigation be completed quickly and action taken.... Resigning is not a big deal, but not as a criminal. I am not a criminal.”

He added: “I have been saying from the beginning that some industrialists and the Congress have a hand in this…. When the probe report comes out and Priyanka Gandhi comes to know the truth, then she will realise that (MP) Deepender Hooda has trapped her in this.” Congress leader Priyanka visited the protest site on Saturday to show solidarity with the sportspersons.

The protesters found support from Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree, who said in a statement on Saturday: “To obtain simple justice, our ace wrestlers, forsaking their work and security, have been forced to mount an agitation and to approach the Supreme Court. It is painful and a national shame. What as a people have we done to ourselves? Justice should be available as a matter of course and not require agitation and knocking at the Supreme Court’s door. Even a private person like me feels constrained to come out of my solitude and condemn this atrocity. That it is to do with our ‘national treasures’, and to do with women, absolutely cannot let anyone be quiet.”