PESHAWAR: Gulshan Mehsud, an amputee gold medalist from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has set a tough challenge for herself: not only does she want to become an international athlete, she also hopes to set the stage for other disabled Pakistani women and girls to excel in sports.
Mehsud was 14, in 2004, when she stepped on a land mine while walking with her cousin in northwestern South Waziristan, her ancestral district. Her cousin died on the spot but Mehsud suffered a severe injury that shattered her leg. She was rushed to a hospital in Peshawar, but doctors could not do anything to save her leg.
Gulshan Mehsud walks out of Qayyum Stadium in Peshawar, Pakistan, on November 5, 2020. (AN photo)
For many long years, disability confined Mehsud to her home. But a breakthrough came in 2018, when with support from her brothers and father — a retired paramilitary Frontier Constabulary official — she enrolled in a therapy program run by the Association for the Rehabilitation of the Physically Disabled (ARPD) in Peshawar and soon began to take part in competitions.
With several consecutive wins under her belt, Mehsud now hopes to compete internationally, “to bring laurels for the country in general and the disabled persons in particular.”
“In 2018, she appeared in powerlifting and won gold medal in the National Games held in Abbottabad,” ARDP communications manager Muhammad Adil said. “The same year, she won gold in powerlifting and table tennis at the National Sports Festival held in Abbottabad.”
Gulshan Mehsud plays table tennis at Qayyum Stadium in Peshawar, Pakistan, on November 5, 2020. (AN photo)
Gulshan repeated her success in the 2019 edition of the Abbottabad sports festival for disabled competitors. In September this year, she won gold in powerlifting and table tennis at the national games for parathletes in Peshawar.
Now her ultimate goal is the empowerment of others, through education.
“I want to do some extraordinary work for disabled persons, specifically for disabled girls,” the 30-year-old gold medalist in powerlifting and table tennis told Arab News last week. “Men with disabilities face problems, but you can’t even imagine the agony of disabled girls. I’m ambitious to build either a training academy or a vocational school for disabled girls. Education is a remedy for all problems.”
In September, Pakistan’s parliament passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, raising hopes that discrimination against millions of disabled Pakistanis could be curbed, especially in the workplace and education.
However, ARDP’s Adil expressed little enthusiasm, saying the law would only be implemented in Islamabad Capital Territory, while provincial governments still needed to sort out their own disability legislation.
“If the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Disability Act which is pending in the law department since 2015 is passed,” he said, “then it will be a great achievement for persons with disabilities.”
