Athletes protesting in opposition to alleged sexual harassment by a high official threaten to throw their medals within the river within the temple city of Haridwar.

India’s high wrestlers have threatened to hurl their medals into the river Ganges as they demand the arrest of the top of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) over sexual harassment allegations.

In a joint assertion issued on Tuesday intensifying their month-old protest, the wrestlers, together with Olympic medallists Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, spelled out their subsequent step.

“We are going to immerse these medals into river Ganga … The more sacred we consider the Ganga, the more sacredly we had achieved these medals by toiling hard. These medals are sacred for the whole country and the right place should be in the Ganga itself,” stated their assertion in Hindi.

“These medals are our lives, our souls. There would be no reason to live after immersing them into the Ganga today,” it stated.

The athletes stated they are going to throw the medals away in Haridwar, a temple city on the banks of the river thought-about holy by Hindus.

The act echoes iconic boxer Muhammad Ali famously throwing his 1960 Rome Olympics gold into the Ohio River after he was denied entry right into a restaurant in Louisville resulting from racial segregation within the United States.

After throwing their medals away, the Indian athletes stated they are going to return to capital New Delhi to start a starvation strike on the British-era India Gate memorial.

The wrestlers had been camping in New Delhi since April 23 demanding motion in opposition to WFI president Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, who has denied any wrongdoing. Singh can be a parliamentarian from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Several of the protesting wrestlers had been briefly detained by the Delhi Police on Sunday and their campsite was cleared after they tried to maneuver in direction of India’s new parliament constructing, inaugurated by Modi.

Singh, 66, has been stripped of his administrative powers however the wrestlers are searching for his arrest over allegations of sexual harassment in direction of feminine wrestlers.

The protesting athletes have additionally sought the intervention of the Supreme Court, which has directed police to register a case in opposition to Singh.