Olympic silver medal winner and the Army’s ace pistol shooter Subedar Vijay Kumar, who has been promoted to the rank of Subedar Major was accorded a grand welcome on his homecoming at the Indore airport near here.

The Army’s pipe band and hundreds of army men gathered at the airport yesterday before the arrival of Kumar by the Delhi-Indore flight.

As soon as Vijay’s flight reached the airport at 3.45 pm, the pipe band of the Sikh regiment started playing victory tunes and the soldiers of AMU and Infantry School raised slogans for him.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and former Union Minister Anant Kumar also greeted him on his arrival at the airport lounge.

In a caravan of army vehicles, Vijay arrived at Mhow, where hundreds of army men lined up on both sides of the road between Kali Paltan area and the AMU node welcoming him with garlands and slogans such as ‘Vijay Saheb Amar Rahein’ and ‘AMU Amar Rahein’.

A huge crowd of soldiers and officers walked behind Vijay to the lawn of AMU near the 50-meter range, about one-and-a-half kilometres in less than 10 minutes.

There was so much enthusiasm in the people present that everybody in the crowd was sloganeering and cheering him

Talking to newsmen, Vijay said it was a great experience for him to come back to AMU which has made him a shooter of this stature.

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