52 Years After Creating Paralympics History, Petkar to Get Arjuna Award for Lifetime Achievement

After 52 years of creating history at the Paralympics, Murlikant Rajaram Petkar is finally set to receive the Arjuna Award for Lifetime Achievement.

- AJEYO BASU

There is a widely held belief that the Indian Army soldier can fight against the most impossible odds and the toughest of situations. Murlikant Rajaram Petkar is the very embodiment of that legendary fighting spirit.

He had sustained severe bullet wounds during the 1965 war against Pakistan, which had left him disabled from under the waist at the tender age of 21.

Not to be daunted, the gutsy soldier from Maharashtra went on to etch his name in the annals of Indian sports by winning India's first gold medal at the Paralympic Games, a mere seven years later.

The Sports Ministry made some course corrections and awarded the Arjuna Award (Lifetime) to the legendary para-swimmer, conferring on him the prestigious award 52 years after he made history for the country in Heidelberg, Germany.

A soldier with the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) of the Indian Army, when he suffered a debilitating injury that rendered him paraplegic, Petkar won the gold medal in the men's 50m freestyle swimming in the 1972 Paralympic Games at Heidelberg, Germany, becoming the first Indian to bag an individual gold medal in the Olympics or Paralympic Games.