On  September 14, 2010, Farooq Ahmed Sheikh, a policeman from Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, was returning home from duty in a local taxi when the driver lost control of the car and it hurtled down into a gorge. Sheikh suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralysed waist down. He was hospitalised and discharged only four months later. “I was bedridden for long,” he remembers, “confined to a room for nearly five years, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling.” The Kitchama resident attempted to take his life four times.

Eleven years later, Sheikh, 34, is back in the police force as a selection grade constable. He’s also one of the top wheelchair basketball players in the country. “My department assisted me with counselling and rehab. It’s their unflinching support that has helped get me back on my feet.” Before the injury,  Sheikh was assigned general duty (law and order). Post rehabilitation, he has a desk job. With the help of an Amritsar-based automotive consultant, Sheikh modified a Maruti Suzuki Alto, which he drives independently to work.