Will use financial aid to open sports academy: Arunima

The 23-year-old national-level football and volleyball player, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital here, wishes to set up a sports academy for poor and rural children once she fully recuperates.

Arunima alias Sonu plans to utilise the financial assistance recieved by her from various quarters to set up the academy.

"Sonu has a dream of setting up a sports academy. Now, as she herself cannot play any longer, I want her dream of setting up the academy to turn into a reality," said her mother Gyanbala.

She said Arunima wants to donate the financial assistance she has received to her proposed sports academy. Though details are yet to be finalised, family sources said Arunima wishes to set up the academy in her native place Akbarpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The sportswoman lost her leg after being pushed out from Padmavat Express near Bareilly on the night of April 11 by some men who tried to rob her while she was going to Gautam Buddha Nagar to appear in a CISF recruitment examination.

The police has registered an FIR under IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 393 (attempt to robbery).