Punjab’s heroes left in oblivion

ludhiana: even though suresh kalmadi congratulated the organising committee national games (ocng) on bringing together many olympians to the opening ceremony of games, hundreds were left out, including some of the star champs of the country like gurbachan singh randhawa, the first recipient of the arjuna award for athletics. randhawa is the only asian to reach the finals of 110 meters hurdles in the entire history of 104 years of olympics, where he had stood fifth.the only two indian athletes to do better than that have been milkha singh and p t usha from the country, who won fourth position. while milkha singh lit the torch, randhawa reached ludhiana on 20th evening and lamented that he had not been invited. randhawa wasn't the only one to be left out from the invitation list. several other stars, including parveen kumar, twice gold medalist at asian games, hari chand, two gold at asian games, balkar singh, asian games discus throw champion, and lt col jaswant singh, gold medal winner of hockey at rome olympics were uninvited. a stadium where thousands of students from local schools were coerced to fill the seats, could not accommodate those few who had made a mark for their country. the argument that these winners are not settled in punjab does not hold good as many hockey stalwarts are settled in jalandhar and ferozepur. names like capt. gurbachan singh, lt col. balbir singh, jagjit singh, tarsem singh, baldev singh, chand singh, charanjit kumar, and gurdip kumar immediately come to mind. while t c gupta, chairman, media committee declined to comment on the matter, i s bindra, secretary, ocng was not available for comments in spite of repeated attempts.