NEW DELHI: Wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat on Monday accepted Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) sidelined president, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s challenge to undergo a polygraph test, but with a rider. The wrestlers demanded that the lie-detector test to establish the truthfulness of the sexual harassment charges against Singh should be conducted under the Supreme Court’s monitoring and streamed live on national television.

Polygraph test measures a person’s physiological responses when questions are asked to establish whether a person is lying or not by tracking breathing rate, blood pressure, perspiration and heart rate.

The wrestlers’ response came a day after Singh – in a Facebook post on Sunday – agreed for a polygraph test on him as had been demanded by protesting grapplers to prove his innocence. However, he demanded that Olympians Bajrang and Vinesh, too, undergo the same. Strangely, in his facebook post, Singh didn’t mention the name of another protesting wrestler, Sakshee Malikkh, who is part of the ongoing stir against him.

“We are ready to face narco test (wrestlers mistook it for polygraph test) but we would also want him to face it under the Supreme Court’s supervision and streamed live on national television. We would like to see what questions are being asked to him. He has asked for narco test of Vinesh and Bajrang. I am saying why only two of us but all those girls as well who have filed complaints against him. All seven women complainants should undergo the test,” Bajrang told reporters at the Jantar Mantar protest site.

Vinesh, on her part, said, “He took the name of Vinesh and Bajrang. I want to tell him that not only us, but all complainants are ready for a live narco test so that the entire country sees what he did with the daughters of the country.”

Singh, in a post in Hindi on his official facebook page, had written: “I am ready to undergo the narco, polygraph or lie detector test. But my condition is that Vinesh and Bajrang should also undergo these tests with me. If both the wrestlers agree to undergo it, call a press conference and make the announcement. I promise them that I am ready for the test.”

When the wrestlers were asked about the conspicuous absence of Sakshee’s name in his post, Bajrang abruptly ended the press conference by thanking the mediapersons while Vinesh told them to ask Singh himself.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) – a statutory body responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights – has framed the guidelines relating to the administration of lie-detector test on a person. Some of the key guidelines include: “If the accused volunteers for the tests, he should be given access to a lawyer. The police and the lawyer should explain the physical, emotional and legal implication of such a test to him. The consent should be recorded before a Judicial Magistrate. At the hearing, the person should also be told in clear terms that the statement that is made shall not be a ‘confessional’ statement to the Magistrate but will have the status of a statement made to the police. The actual recording of the lie-detector test shall be done in an independent agency (such as a hospital) and conducted in the presence of a lawyer.”

The wrestlers will take out a candlelight march from Jantar Mantar to India Gate on Tuesday to mark one month of their agitation. “We must remind people that ours is a peaceful protest and anyone trying to disrupt peace with provocative speeches or any kind of trouble would be himself responsible for consequences and we don't take any responsibility," Sakshee added.