Masudur Rahman Baidya from India, Muslim by religion, was an Indian para swimmer, who swam across the Strait of Gibraltar. He was the influence to every para swimmers and the physically handicapped people of India. His life and times are the inspiration not only the players, or swimmers or the paralympicians, but also the people of the country as a whole.

Early Life of Masudur Rahman Baidya
Masudur Rahman Baidya was born in the year 1968. He was an Indian swimmer who was the world`s first physically handicapped swimmer to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar. He was born and brought up in West Bengal, at Ballabhpur village in the North 24 Parganas District. He came from a poor family. His father was an imam of a local mosque. At the age of ten, young Masudur lost both his legs in a train mishap.

Career of Masudur Rahman Baidya
In the year, 1989, at a swimming event organized by the Artificial Limb Centre at Pune, Maharashtra, Masudur Rahman Baidya came first in sixteen out of seventeen competitions. In spite of his physical disabilities, Masudur Rahman Baidya came fifth on two other events after this. On the first occasion, Masudur Rahman Baidya swam from Panihati to Ahiritola in the heart of the Ganga River, flowing through Kolkata; and came fifth. He also stood fifth in an eighty-one kilometers long swimming competition organized in Murshidabad District in West Bengal. In 1997, Masudur Rahman Baidya became the first physically handicapped Asian swimmer to successfully cross the English channel. Followed by this, in the year 2001, Masudur Rahman Baidya became the world`s first physically handicapped swimmer to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar. He achieved this feat; by swimming from the Tarifa islands in Spain to shores of Morocco- a total distance of twenty two kilometres- in just about four hours and twenty minutes. In his later life, Masudur was diagnosed with anaemia and owing to his limbs becoming increasingly crippled.

Death of Masudur Rahman Baidya
Masudur Rahman Baidya died on 26th April 2015 at a hospital in Kolkata, at the age of 46 only. Sachin Tendulkar visited him in December last year while inaugurating Rabindra Swimming Pool and Anushilan Kendra at Lalkuti in Rajarhat.