Wonder kid Budhia to cut short his marathon

Bhubaneswar, May 24 (UNI) Apprehending a ban by the Child Welfare Committee(CWC) on the proposed 500 kms long marathon by wonder kid Budhia Singh, the Budhia Singh Trust, the oraganiser of the show, today decided to cut short the marathon to 100 kms.

Budhia Singh Trust Managing Trustee Biranchi Das, also the coach cum custodian of the child prodigy told newspersons here today that Budhia would now run only 100 kms between Bhubaneswar and Kolkata touching 22 towns in Orissa.

The Trust had earlier announced that Budhia would lead a marathon walking rally from Bhubaneswar along with hundreds of his supporters from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata covering a distance of 500 kms in eleven days to spread the message ''olympic champaion not a dream but reality''.

The journey was scheduled to begin from the State Museum here on June 6 and end in Kolkata on June 16 next covering five Orissa districts.

But the CWC which had imposed a ban on long marathon by Budhia in the past, has issued a show cause to the Trust stating that such a long marathon would be construed as an act of subjecting the child to unnecessary suffering and cruelty.

The CWC felt the action of engaging Budhia in walking in the marathon would not serve any interest of the child in any manner and asked the Trust to appear before the committee on May 25 next.

Mr Das in a hurriedly called news conference, today tried to downplay the 500 kms marathon by Budhia Singh stating that he would only walk for a maximum 100 kms during the eleven days and travel the rest 400 days by a vehicle.

The kid had already entered into the Limca Book of Record by covering a distance of 65 kms non-stop in seven hours on May 2 last year.

UNI