*Resident of Kokernag, Amir serves as JCO in Army
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 30: In a major achievement, a 29-year-old Amir Ahmad Bhat from a remote village of Damhall in Kokernag (Anantnag) of Kashmir Division, who is serving as a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) in Indian Army has been selected to represent India in the Paralympic games to be held in Paris in August this year.
Amir is the first Para Shooter in the country who has qualified for the Olympics in less than two years and will represent India in P3-25m Pistol mixed at the 2024 Paralympic games to be held at Paris, France from August 28, 2024.
Hailing from village Damhall in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, the JCO did his schooling at his native village from the Government Higher Secondary School Damhall where he completed his Matriculation and then moved to Government Higher Secondary School Dialgam to pursue his 10+2 standard.
He played a number of national and International events and has 10 national and international awards in his kitty including a gold medal in Lima Peru besides a bronze medal won in the World Sports Shooting Para Sport (WSPS) world cup held in Changwon South Korea in March 2023.
Bhat also won a Silver medal in the WSPS World Cup held in Osijek Croatia in July 2023. Besides he represented Jammu and Kashmir in the Ist Khelo India Para Games in which he scored 540 points in 50mtr free pistol and secured the first position.
Amir joined the Indian Army’s regimental Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JKLI) as a soldier in the year 2012 after completing his 12th standard. ”In the Army, I developed a keen interest in shooting sports alongside my assigned duties as a soldier and was always displaying my innate talent in this unique game”, Amir said.
He added whenever he was getting a chance to play it, he used to outperform. “To the best of my luck, I got a chance to play in the trials for shooting sports in March 2021 conducted by the Indian Army in the Marksmanship Unit of Mhow Indore”.
Despite performing brilliantly in the trials and being hailed by the management, due to some reasons Amir was directed to switch to pistol shooting by his unit heads instead of rifle shooting, posing a tough challenge for him.
“I was somehow new in this field of shooting. But given my talent, diligence and passion, I managed to perform it in a more impressive way as well”, Amir said and added “I was selected to undergo five months training for pistol shooting”.
He said after completing the training he was selected as a shooting player in the Indian Army’s marksmanship unit in Mhow Indore. ”I made the debut to play for national games in my shooting career in the month of March 2022 and fortunately won a silver medal in the very first national game”, he said.
Amir has earned many rewards in his career during a short span of two years during which he represented India at both national as well as international levels with utmost prestige and honour and became the first Para Shooter from Jammu and Kashmir as well as from the entire country who has qualified for the Olympics.
“Undoubtedly, the Indian Army and J&K Police have done a lot for the shooting sport in J&K. The J&K Rifle Association (JKRA) has made all out efforts to encourage the budding Shooters and Shooting game in terms of training facilities at the district level with fast growing infrastructure in private sector,” expressing his happiness over Hamid’s selection, said Dilbag Singh, Patron in Chief Jammu and Kashmir Rifle Association. Congratulatory messages poured in from Kuldeep Singh Jamwal Chairman and S S Sodhi President Jammu Kashmir Rifle Association.
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