The Senior Citizen Brisk Walk Competition organised by the Chandigarh Police at Sukhna Lake turned ugly on Thursday when a 71-year-old collapsed during the event. He was rushed to the Sector-16 Government Multi-Specialty Hospital, where he was declared ‘dead on arrival’.

Bishan Singh Parmar, a resident of the Modern Housing Complex in Manimajra, fainted when he was just 200 metres away from the finishing line of the four-kilometre walk.

Parmar had come to participate in the competition along with his wife Kuldip Kaur, son and granddaughter.

Taking his age and health into consideration, the organisers had recommended Parmar against participating in the competition but the septuagenarian insisted that he was fit to contest for which he also gave an undertaking.

His son Navin, who had recently returned from Australia, said his father had won several medals in Australia in similar events and it was shocking to believe that he had died in such a manner.

“He returned from Australia two and a half months ago and was very active,” said Navin adding that he was expecting his father to win the race.

“He was very confident that he will participate and never had any health problem. We knew he will win, I was surprised not seeing him at the finishing line, then I saw the ambulance and knew something had gone wrong,” said the grieving son.

The postmortem of the deceased will be conducted tomorrow.

“Preliminary investigation reveals that he died of heart attack. He was otherwise ineligible to participate as senior citizens above the age of 70 were not allowed, but he was adamant and all enthusiastic to participate,” said Mahavir Singh, acting SHO of the Sector-3 police station.

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