Sport Gives Hope To People With Disabilities in Kashmir

Srinagar, MINA – Sport brings hope to many people with disabilities in the Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region, one of whom is Inshah Bashir.

“Wherever there is hope, there is life,” said Inshah Bashir as quoted by Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.

Bashir, 28, is the captain of the Jammu and Kashmir women’s wheelchair basketball team. She was recently awarded the national award for individual excellence by the president of India on the eve of International Day of Disabilities. Her team won a silver medal this year at the basketball championships in India.

She said she found hope and solace in sports. “It gives me an identity and the power to achieve what I can set my sights on,” she says.

Bashir has won awards and accolades for his sporting ability, but she has not given up on fighting for the rights of persons with disabilities in the Kashmir region.

As well as being an athlete, she works as a warden for the Voluntary Medicare Society to help people with disabilities in the area, providing counseling and moral support.

She said in Kashmir there are many people who need support and a helping hand.

“If I could help them, I would respect myself even more,” she said.

Bashir was very active. She likes to go out. But an accident 13 years ago took away her ability to move after he fell from the balcony of his house in Budgam district.

The accident damaged her spinal cord and despite several surgeries, she was unable to stand. She fell victim to a locomotive handicap and has remained wheelchair bound ever since.

According to a study by Kashmiri sociologist Bashir Dabla, there are more than 600,000 disabled people in Kashmir, with almost 50 percent having permanent disabilities. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)