Born to a poor family in a village at the outskirts of Lucknow, Kumar is the only candidate from the state and one among 22 children selected from across the country for the award.

Kumar is being awarded for saving the lives of four children, including a handicapped girl, from a fire that broke out in his village on April 4. In the incident, Kumar not only saved the children trapped in a hut, but also the cattle kept nearby. Kumar’s two brothers and Pritam (3), a polio patient, were among the trapped children.

On April 4, around 3 pm, when various huts suddenly caught fire in Niwajpurva village, these four kids locked themselves inside a hut out of fear. Kumar jumped inside the hut to save them. In the attempt, he received minor burns in his arms and legs.

“He is like an angel for Pritam. The children were inside a house when fire engulfed several houses of our village. No one had the courage to go inside. Even Subhash’s mother stopped him from going inside as the thatched roof of the house had already caught fire. But he went inside through the broken roof and saved the children. In turn, he burned himself,” said Chaya Davi, Pritam’s mother.

“It was an spontaneous reaction. Many people told me to wait till the fire vehicle arrived. But how could I do so because these small kids who call me “bhaiya” and look up to me were trapped inside. Fire tenders came around half-an-hour later. If people had waited then these kids would have received serious burns by that time,” said Kumar, who also saved the life of a drowning cattle, a month ago and is now looked up by the entire village as a hero.