A man has been arrested by Indian authorities following a fatal hit-and-run that claimed the life of Fauja Singh, widely recognized as the world’s oldest marathon participant.
Law enforcement officials stated that the suspect, identified as Amritpal Singh Dhillon, was behind the wheel of a high-speed SUV that struck the 114-year-old athlete. Singh was severely injured and succumbed shortly after being admitted to a hospital.
The collision happened on Monday in Punjab, a northern region of India, while Singh was taking his routine afternoon walk.
Celebrated across the world, Singh broke multiple marathon records in older age brackets. Remarkably, he didn’t start running until he was 89 and went on to complete nine full marathons between 2000 and 2013—when he officially retired from the sport.
The vehicle linked to the hit-and-run, described as a white SUV, has been located and taken into custody by police.
The incident unfolded near Beas Pind, the village where Singh was born, not far from the city of Jalandhar.
Authorities said he was crossing the street when the SUV hit him. Local residents rushed him to medical care, but he could not be saved.
An Indian media report referencing the official complaint suggested that Singh might have survived if the 26-year-old driver had taken immediate action to get him help.
Singh’s running legacy is marked by numerous milestones.
“In 2011, he reportedly became the first person over 100 to finish a full marathon, in Toronto. He also carried the Olympic torch at the 2012 London Olympics.”
However, despite these feats, his name never made it into the Guinness World Records as the oldest marathon runner, since he lacked a formal birth certificate from 1911.
“The BBC earlier reported that Singh’s British passport showed his date of birth as being 1 April 1911, and that he had a letter from the Queen congratulating him on his 100th birthday.”
“Guinness said they wanted to give him the record but could only accept official documents from the year of birth.”
His longtime trainer once explained that official birth documents were simply not issued in rural India during that period.
His Ilford-based running group and charity, Sikhs In The City, announced that their upcoming events in East London—where Singh had lived since the early ’90s—would honor his remarkable journey and legacy.
As a child growing up in rural Punjab, Singh was mocked due to his fragile legs. He struggled to walk until around age five.
“But the same boy, once mocked for his weakness, went on to make history,” he told BBC Punjabi in June.
He didn’t receive formal education or engage in athletics in his early years. He worked as a farmer and lived through the upheavals of both World Wars and India’s partition.
“In my youth, I didn’t even know the word ‘marathon’ existed,” he said.
Singh took up running much later in life, following immense personal tragedy.
In the early 1990s, he lost his wife and relocated to London to live with his eldest son. During a later trip to India, he witnessed his younger son Kuldeep’s tragic death in an accident, a moment that deeply impacted him.
While grieving in the UK, he sought solace during a visit to a gurdwara in Ilford. There, he met a group of older men who regularly ran together. Among them was Harmander Singh—who would become his coach and help launch his late-in-life running career.
Singh became internationally recognized when he was featured in a 2004 global advertising campaign by Adidas titled Impossible is Nothing, alongside iconic figures like Muhammad Ali.
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