SRINAGAR — A specially-abled girl from north Kashmir is inspiring hundreds of people as she has represented India at the international level and is set to represent the country again in international Wheelchair basketball championship scheduled to be held in India next month.
Ishrat Rasheed, 25, a resident of Bangdara village of North Kashmir’s Baramulla is the first specially-abled International basketball player of J&K.
She told news agency Kashmir News Observer that she fell from the second floor of her house in 2016, causing grievous injuries to spinal cord leaving her paralyzed below the waist.
“I was unable to accept this reality and nobody would have thought at that stage that I would ever be able to reach an international stage and represent India in wheelchair basketball,” Ishrat said.
“During the first six months, when I was bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound, I got very much depressed. However, one day my father took me to the Medicare Society where disability was a normal thing,” she said.
“I somehow understood that there were hundreds of people like me in the world and that changed my perception and I came out of my depression.”
At the Medicare Society, Ishrat said she saw a few boys confined to wheelchairs playing basketball and it inspired confidence in her to play as well.
Ishrat said she was selected for the first national during a camp at the Indoor stadium and represented India in 2019.
“Now, I have been selected during trials held at Srinagar to represent India in the International Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in Noida from November 6 -11,” she said. — (KNO)