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“I tell my fellow survivors, treat your pain as your friend. My own target is an Olympic gold”

Ordnance seems to be a household word in the family of Mohamad Umar (38) from Kanpur. From his grandfather onwards, most male members including himself have been central government employees in factories manufacturing ordnance (weapons and ammunition) for the Indian Armed Forces. We joked that maybe the effect of being around all that military equipment has rubbed off on Umar! Besides being invincible (truly bulletproof!) this Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) survivor is a medal-winning Para Rifle Shooter.
 
Umar, who has three older and three younger siblings (the eldest, Mehtab Ahmed, is 50), was lively and resourceful as a child. He studied in a government school, average in studies but keen on extracurricular activities and games, especially gali (street) cricket. He narrates how, as a schoolboy, he silently watched and learnt vehicle repair from his second-oldest brother, a garage mechanic. When he was in Class 7 he took a car that had come for repair out on a test drive and was soundly thrashed by his brother. In Class 9 his teacher’s car was stuck in the rain and she was looking around for a mechanic when a senior told her Umar knew driving. He came to her rescue and the whole school knew him as “the boy who can drive”!
 
Umar’s father, who worked in the Kanpur ordnance factory, died in 1995 when he was in Class 4. The family faced a financial struggle. Mehtab secured his father’s post; the second brother (now a senior mechanic) started working in a garage, and Umar too began earning a little through odd jobs from teachers and tuitions for his school juniors. He stopped studying after Class 12 and joined a membership marketing scheme. He then realised he should study further and did his B.Com in 2010 from the local Armapur PG College.
 
At a school friend’s wedding he met one of his old pals who told him he was earning a good salary in the Merchant Navy but it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Umar took it as a challenge and prepared for the Merchant Navy entrance exam. In 2011, he qualified, did a one-year cadet course at the TS Rahaman College in Navi Mumbai, returned home, got married to Zubeida Khatoon, and proceeded to look for work. A few months after his son Mahin was born, in December 2013, he joined a UAE merchant vessel as a deck cadet. However the company was lax in paying his salary so he quit after six months, joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, and in 2016, started work in the ordnance factory in Jabalpur as a Civil Military Driver.
 
His life changed drastically on 16 May 2017. There was a hydraulic failure during loading in the factory and massive boxes fell on him. The resulting SCI put him in hospitals for months and left him with the crushing realisation that he could never walk again and would have to completely depend on Zubeida. Even worse, people commented: “Better to have died than live like this.” Since it was an accident at the workplace he continued to get half his salary, though.
 
His fighting spirit surfaced. He browsed and found disabled people thriving – for example, Arunima Sinha, the first female amputee to climb Mount Everest. In 2017 he went to the Indian Spinal Injury Centre, New Delhi, for further rehabilitation. There he met an injured Commonwealth Games gymnast who told him to pursue sports. Umar, who had always been sporty, took up shooting after reading about para shooter and Padma Shree awardee Avani Lekhara.
 
Umar returned to Jabalpur and joined Olympic shooter Gagan Narang’s academy – located on the second floor! He had to dip into his accident compensation to pay a helper Rs 500 a day. In 2019 he was relieved from his factory job on medical grounds and Zubeida was instated in his place. They moved to their hometown Kanpur in 2020 when Zubeida was transferred (to the Field Gun Factory). Umar joined a private academy to train in shooting. Mehtab’s 25-year-old son Mumtaz Ahmad quit his job to take his uncle for practice and care for all his needs.
 
In 2021 Umar won a gold medal in his very first competition, the 43rd UP State Championship in Noida, and another gold in the First Zonal Para Shooting Championship in Haryana. In 2023 he was ranked 11th in the first Khelo India Para Games, and was selected for the Para Shooting World Cup in March 2024 in New Delhi, where he was ranked Number 1 in India and 17th in the world.
 
Despite these accolades, he has received no government support. The very rifle he uses is not his own: it belongs to the academy. Shooting being an expensive sport, he had to pawn Zubeida’s jewellery at one point. He says, “I can achieve nothing without the support of family and friends.” Whenever he faced a financial crunch his friends took personal loans and some even gave him their entire salary! By the way, his son Mohamad Mahin (12), who studies in Kendriya Vidyalaya, is a budding champion; in 2025 he won two gold medals – at the District Open Championships and the Kanpur UP Olympic Games.
 
Umar has been helping others with SCI and points out that accessibility is their biggest problem. Recently he was invited to speak at a function but there was no ramp and four people had to carry him on to the stage. His two main wishes: “To help as many people as possible. And to win an Olympic gold for the country.”