Kartik Aaryan To Play Soldier-Paralympic Gold Medalist Murlikant Petkar In Chandu Champion

Kartik Aaryan has lately emerged as one of the prominent actors with many content-driven and commercial films. As of now, he is looking forward to his much-anticipated film Chandu Champion, directed by Kabir Khan. This film will be released on the big screens on June 14.

Chandu Champion is based on the life of Murlikant Petkar, India’s first Paralympic gold medalist. As per IANS, Murlikant won an individual gold medal in the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, Germany. He also set a world record in the 50-metre freestyle swimming event at 37.33 seconds.

Murlikant Petkar was a jawan of the craftsman rank as well in the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) in the Indian Army. He sustained severe bullet wounds during the 1965 war against Pakistan. He lost an arm due to these wounds and then switched his career to swimming. Murlikant was interested in pursuing other sports as well besides swimming, like- javelin throw, slalom, table tennis, and shotput at the 1972 Paralympics. In Table Tennis, he even went on to clear the first round in the 1968 Summer Paralympics. He won a silver in javelin throw and bronze in shotput at the Third Commonwealth Paraplegic Games held in Edinburgh, Scotland. The government awarded him the Padma Shri in 2018, in recognition of his many achievements.