Fauja Singh hit-and-run case: NRI from Canada who was driving SUV arrested

The Punjab Police Wednesday arrested the driver, a non-resident Indian (NRI) who recently returned from Canada, for running over veteran marathon runner Fauja Singh earlier this week.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Jalandhar, Harvinder Singh Virk, said that the accused has been identified as Amritpal Singh Dhillon and is a resident of Dasupur village in Kartarpur.

The police had recovered fragments of the vehicle’s headlight from the scene, which proved to be important clues in the investigation and led to the identification of the accused, the SSP said. He added that an FIR has been registered at Adampur Police Station under Sections 281 and 105 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

The vehicle had been identified on Tuesday and the police had said that the driver would be arrested soon. “We have identified the vehicle from a CCTV footage. It is a Punjab registered Toyota Fortuner,” Harvinder Singh had told.

Fauja Singh, who had completed a full marathon at the age of 100 thus becoming the oldest person to be doing so, had died on Monday after being hit by the vehicle at his native Beas village in Punjab’s Jalandhar district.

Fauja Singh, aka ‘Turbaned Tornado’, had turned 114 on April 1 this year and had run a total of nine full marathons in his career spanning 14 years (2000 to 2013). He became the face of Adidas campaign ‘Impossible is Nothing’ which also included boxing legend Muhammad Ali and football legend David Beckham.

Born in Beas village on April 1, 1911, Fauja Singh was the youngest of four children in a farming family. It was in 1993 that he immigrated to England to be with one of his sons after his wife Gian Kaur’s death. During his time in England, Singh started long walks and running in public parks near his Ilford home. After coming in contact with marathon coach Harmander Singh, Fauja Singh competed in the London Marathon in April 2000 at the age of 89 and completed it in 6 hours and 54 minutes, bettering the earlier world record in the senior age category by 58 minutes.

From 2000 to 2012, Fauja Singh ran London Marathon six times, Toronto Marathon twice and New York Marathon once.

Author Khushwant Singh, who had written his biography ‘Turbaned Tornado’, shared his memories of Fauja Singh. “Babe ne hamesha duniya nu dita hi hai (Baba always gave something to this world). He always used to support charities across the world. I first met him in 2005 when I was writing my book, ‘Sikhs Unlimited’. It was a huge thing at that time when he became the poster boy for Adidas campaign. When we released the biography in 2011 at House of Lords in London, Fauja Baba was excited that his story would reach the world. With his feats, he wrote his name in history. Once we were in Australia, people honoured him with dollars. He collected that money and put it in the Gurdwara ‘golak’ (offering box),” Khushwant said.