Allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation in India's highest-profile Olympic sport have reached into the top echelons of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, with police barricading a team of striking wrestlers staging a sit-in in New Delhi.
The situation threatens to undo the country's recent gains in promoting professional sports opportunities for women – such as the lucrative WPL cricket tournament and a newly announced professional football league — revealing an ugly underbelly where athletes have no voice and no access to a complaint mechanism.
When police refused to investigate the abuse allegations a group of well-known wrestlers, including two Olympic medallists, they went to the Supreme Court asking it to intervene, demanding an investigation into the claims against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a sitting MP and current president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).
Speaking to The Ticket, journalist Sharda Ugra said the impact of the protest was reverberating around the country.
"There has never been a protest like this in India by athletes speaking up about their rights – ever. This is a huge, huge thing that has happened.
"The law in India is very strict. Because there is a minor involved in the complaint, the police have to register this case immediately, an arrest has to be made, there has to be a certain speed and response — which there absolutely was not.
"The wrestlers had to actually go to the Supreme Court and say 'please get the police to register this case'."
The police have this week started recording witness statements from the wrestlers.
Thousands of members of the powerful farmers union arrived at the protest site during the week and broke through police barricades to show their support for the seven wrestlers, who say they will move to a new phase of the protest on May 21 if Singh is not arrested by then.
The farming community has strong ties with the sport of wrestling; many of the athletes come from farming families.
Wrestlers have won more Olympic medals for India than any other sport.
The sit-in is taking place at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, a historic stone observatory-like site close to parliament and used previously for protests of national importance.
The athletes coordinating the sit-in include Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympic bronze medallist, Sakshi Malik.
After the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Malik met with Modi.
She told the BBC from the protest site that she spoke to the prime minister at the time regarding the wrestlers' concerns about the president of wrestling's governing body, a man who serves in Modi's government.
"I told the prime minister that [Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh] is making us miserable and troubling us," Malik told the BBC.
"I did not openly tell him about sexual harassment. He said, 'do not worry, I am here for you people. Nobody can trouble or harass you. We are here.'"
Malik said the prime minister obviously spoke to Singh because she started receiving threatening phone calls from Singh supporters.
Malik was called to a meeting with the sports minister, Anurag Thakur, with whom she said she discussed the wrestlers' concerns "more openly".
"I hadn't even reached home and Brij Bhushan [Sharan Singh] knew everything I had said."
Malik's family and those of her fellow protesters have also received death threats.
"I challenge the WFI president to take a narco test," Malik told the media this week.
A narco test, described as the injection of "truth serum", has been used previously to help solve crucial cases in India although it remains controversial, with statements taken during a such a test not admissible in court except in special circumstances.
"We are also willing to take the test. Let the truth come out in the open, who is the culprit and who is not," Malik said.
Support for the wrestlers is growing, including the influential voice of actors and other celebrities.
United World Wrestling (UWW), the international governing body, is aware of the deepening crisis but has not responded to the ABC's request for comment.
The UWW's safeguarding policy states:
"UWW rejects and condemns any form of physical and psychological abuse and harassment and is firmly determined to initiate proceedings against any case of abuse and harassment within its jurisdiction and to collaborate with National Federations, National Olympic Committees, MEOs and Law Enforcement Authorities to resolve any such case arising outside its jurisdiction."
Singh denies the claims and says if they are proven, he will resign. Others are calling for him to stand down from his sports presidency during the investigation. The wrestlers say they will refuse to compete while he remains in office.
The president of India's Olympic Association, PT Usha, is a former Olympic track and field athlete who in the early days of the protest accused the athletes of bringing shame on the nation by making their grievances public.
Around the world, athletes are taking matters into the public domain, through the media, because their governing bodies are failing them.
The focus in India remains on the athletes rather than the pursuit of justice and a full investigation against Singh.
"He is a very influential politician in the city and the state he operates out of, which is one part of the country where he has the numbers to make him relevant to people in power," journalist Sharda Ugra told The Ticket.
"What we're seeing here, and even with these very famous female athletes, is that the very moment any type of complaint is made about harassment or sexual misbehaviour, or misconduct on the part of anyone in power, it's the victims that start being blamed, and shamed.
"We are a very conservative country still and therefore, for the women to be coming out, for the athletes to be saying this, is a huge sort of shame and loss of face, and loss of honour.
"It's very much split down the middle, it's an us versus them kind of scenario … its ramifications are huge."
The ramifications include a hardening of traditional cultural reluctance for families to allow women to play sport, which only recently had seen a significant softening, leading to India's selection of an almost 50-50 gender split for the most recent Summer Olympic Games.
However, those in charge of wrestling, football and the highly publicised WPL cricket competition – amongst other sports in India – have close ties to Modi's BJP ruling party, with a reluctance from within the government to publicly prosecute cases such as this.
"Previously the sports minister would challenge these people when it came to governance and functioning, but [now] it just doesn't move because the sports ministry is the same government, the same party, and so on so you're having all these things coming together," Ugra said.
"I am not saying that the promotion of women's sport is airbrushing, because it is genuine … but the consequences for women in sport who speak up are there for all to see in this wrestling case.
"So, while the cricket story is great, the undercarriage is not good at all, and the wrestlers have just called that out."
The affected wrestlers and their supporters hope as international interest in their story grows, pressure will build on domestic and international officials to prove their policies are worth more than the paper they are written on.
