Arunima Sinha: Compensation for India's Everest climbing amputee

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Arunima Sinha on top of the Mount EverestImage source, AFP
Image caption,

Arunima Sinha scaled the summit in 2013

An Indian mountaineer, who lost a leg resisting robbers in a moving train in 2011, has won a prolonged legal battle to get compensation from the railway company.

Arunima Sinha's lawyer said India's state-run railways initially refused to recognise Ms Sinha as a passenger and even blamed her for the accident.

The legal victory came after a seven year battle in the railway tribunal.

Ms Sinha became the world's first woman amputee to climb Mount Everest in 2013.

She was a volleyball champion before her accident, but chose mountaineering to "accomplish her dreams".

The railway tribunal ordered that Ms Sinha must be paid 700,000 rupees ($11,000; £8,000) in compensation after her legal team was able to prove that she had been travelling on a valid ticket and had been pushed from a moving train by robbers.

In an interview with the BBC in 2013, she said that she had turned her artificial leg into her strength.

"I stubbornly chose the most difficult sport for myself. When I reached the summit, I felt like screaming at the top of my voice. I wanted to tell the world: here I am. I have saved that moment inside me," she said.