Renowned disability rights activist Javed Abidi died on Sunday after after succumbing to?chest?infection. He was 53. ?He was the director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and the founder of the Disability Rights Group.

IANS reported that he passed away around 1.30 pm, a friend of Abidi said, adding that he had been ailing for the past few weeks.

"Javed was having a breathing problem for past a few weeks due to smog and bad weather. He got a chest infection four-five days back," she told the news agency.

Abidi was also the Global Chair of Disabled People International (DPI), a world body with special consultative status to the United Nations.

Born in 1965 in Aligarh, Abidi was diagnosed with spina bifida. Abidi wasn't operated on for eight years, and suffered nerve damage as a result. At the age of 10, he injured himself in a fall and required another operation. After this, his family moved to the United States and Abidi received care at the Boston Children's Hospital and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. At the age of fifteen he became a wheelchair-user.?