New Delhi: An amputee CRPF officer, awarded the ‘Shaurya Chakra’ for a daring operation against Naxals in 2011, is going to be the first blade runner from security forces combating India’s internal conflicts to run a marathon scheduled in the national capital later this month.
The young officer, R K Singh, has beaten many odds in his relatively small service of 11 years in the country’s largest paramilitary force. Singh was put into a low medical category and was denied promotion last year because of the amputation of his left leg after he led his troops in an anti-Naxal ambush in Jharkhand’s Lohardaga where he encountered IED blasts.
The set of blades are being imported from America for him to undertake the first-ever ‘Run for Unity’ half-marathon hosted by CRPF to honour its martyrs on October 12 in the national capital region. “I just thought why I should not be participating? Nothing stops me….I have been trained at the SPG and NSG. I have been an operations man all my life. Hence, I decided that even with one leg I will run for whatever distance I can,” Singh said.
