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Amputee beats odds to conquer Everest
Sanjay Pandey
Last Updated IST
Volleyball player Arunima Sinha after she was trown off a train in 2011.
Volleyball player Arunima Sinha after she was trown off a train in 2011.

This youngster had hit the headlines for all wrong reasons a little over two years ago. Her claims that she was pushed from a moving train by miscreants was later rubbished by railway police, who said that she was trying to end her life.

Her claims that she had been a state volleyball player had also been called into question by state authorities.

However, there was no dispute about the doctors amputating Arunima Sinha’s leg and now the 25-year-old has proved her mettle by becoming the first Indian amputee to scale the world’s highest peak Mt Everest. 

Even after the accident, Arunima had said she would not sit idle and spend the rest of her life without purpose. “I may not now play volleyball but I can do many other things'', she had said from her hospital bed. Her actions have now revealed the determination behind those words.

She had received training from Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to scale Mt Everest, at Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand, notwithstanding the slow and painful recovery from the horrid accident that claimed her legs.

Arunima had lost her leg after being allegedly pushed out of a moving train near Bareilly by unidentified miscreants after she claimed that she resisted an attempted robbery on April 11 last year. She was found lying in a pool of blood in the morning by the villagers and was admitted to the district hospital. One of her legs had to be amputated following infection.

The incident had triggered a nation wide outrage and the railway had to pay a compensation of Rs five lakh to the athlete.

The GRP, which was probing the incident, submitted its final report in the railway magistrate's court in Bareilly a few months back stating that there was no evidence to suggest that Arunima had been pushed by any one out of the speeding train.

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(Published 21 May 2013, 18:31 IST)