London Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt has hit back at fellow wrestler Vinesh Phogat after being called Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the outgoing WFI president's lackey amid the ongoing sexual harassment case. Phogat levelled several allegations against Dutt saying that he tried to disregard the wrestlers' protest which went on for 38 days before Delhi Police brought it to a forceful end while mentioning that he asked families of several women wrestlers to keep their daughters under control.
In a nearly half an hour-long video message in response to Phogat's elaborate Twitter post, Dutt questioned the exemption provided to Vinesh Phogat and five other wrestlers to qualify for Asian Games and World Championships in the trials. As reported by PTI on Thursday, six protesting wrestlers will have to win just one bout against the winner of stage-one trials to be in the Team India squad for the Asian Games and World Championships.
Dutt questioned the logic behind such exemption while challenging Phogat to name the women wrestler who he had approached. Dutt alleged that Phogat herself was involved in corruption as she got one of her husband's family members INR 25 Lakh as prize money from the Haryana government. Dutt said that the same money should have been given to her actual coach and uncle Mahavir Phogat.
Phogat had called out Dutt for betraying his own wrestling fraternity as she came out firing on all cylinders on the micro-blogging site. "The whole wrestling world understood that Yogeshwar was eating leftovers from Brij Bhushan's plate. If anyone raises voice against injustice in the society, then Yogeshwar definitely vomits," Vinesh wrote on her official Twitter page.
"He also called the family members of many women wrestlers and told them to keep their daughters under control. He was already publicly giving statements against women wrestlers, yet he was kept in both committees. He constantly prevented wrestlers and coaches from joining the protest," she further wrote.
(With PTI inputs)
