13-Year-Old Autistic Girl Jiya Rai Swims Across Palk Strait Between Sri Lanka And India In 13 hours

The swimmer was received by Tamil Nadu Director General of Police C Sylendra Babu and a large number of people at Dhanushkodi, reported news agency ANI

Autistic swimmer Jiya Rai swims across Palk Strait from Sri Lanka to India in 13 hours. (Image: Twitter/ANI)

New Delhi: After receiving the prestigious Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar award -- the highest honour for a citizen below 18 years in the country -- earlier this year, Jiya Rai, a 13-year-old autistic swimmer successfully swam across the Palk Strait starting from Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu in 13 hours.

The swimmer was received by Tamil Nadu Director General of Police C Sylendra Babu and a large number of people at Dhanushkodi, reported news agency ANI. Ramanathapuram SP E Karthik and Municipal vice-chairman Dhakshinamoorthy felicitated the swimmer with shawls.

Tamil Nadu | 13-year-old autistic girl, Jiya Rai swam from Sri Lanka's Thalaimannar to Arichalmunai's Dhanushkodi in 13 hours on Sunday

She was received by a large gathering at the Indian shore led by DGP C Sylendra Babu pic.twitter.com/G38wbPwMaB

— ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2022

Jiya joined a select band of swimmers -- Kutraleeswaran (1994), R Jai Jaswanth (2019), USA's Edi Hu (2020), Shyamala Koli (2021) -- are other swimmers who swam from Sri Lanka to India.

Jiya had taken up the swimming expedition to create awareness about autism. Hailing from Mumbai, Jiya has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but that didn't stop her from achieving several feats in swimming. Earlier, Jiya has reportedly set a world record by swimming from Worli sea link in Bandra to Gateway of India in just 8 hours and 40 minutes.