India women's hockey skipper Rani Rampal condemned casteist slurs hurled at Vandana Katariya's family after the side suffered a loss in the semi-finals of the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. India suffered a loss against Argentina in the semi-finals, and the side then narrowly missed out on a bronze medal after suffering a 3-4 defeat against Great Britain.
"It is such a bad thing. We give it our everything and every player makes so many sacrifices to represent the country. Whatever happened with Vandana's family was a shameful act. I just want to tell people to rise above casteism and stop all these things. We have risen above all this and all our religions are different, we come from different parts of the country but when we play, we play for the Indian flag," Rampal told reporters during a virtual press conference on Saturday organised by Hockey India.
"We sweat it out day in and day out to make the country proud. There are many good people in the country as well, even though we did not win the medal, I have never seen this level of respect from the people. If we want our country to become a sporting powerhouse, everyone has to contribute. Just athletes cannot make it happen so it is a bad thing that happened with Vandana Katariya's family, I hope it is a lesson for everybody that no such thing should happen," she added.
Earlier, Vandana Katariya's family in Haridwar was subjected to harassment and casteist slurs were hurled at them after the Indian women's hockey team lost their semi-final match on Wednesday. It has been reported that a couple of people engaged in celebrating and bursting crackers at a distance from the house of Vandana, a resident of Roshnabad in Haridwar district, after the team lost the semi-final match.
Vandana Kataria's brother Chandrashekhar Kataria informed the Sidcul police station in-charge about this incident in a written complaint and soon the police detained a person who burst crackers. Sidcul police station SHO Lakhpat Singh Butola confirmed that some people had set off fireworks at a distance from Vandana Kataria's house, in which a person had been taken into custody while acting on the complaint of Chandrashekhar Kataria.
( With inputs from ANI )
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