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-km-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 km.

Budhia Singh Trust Managing Trustee Biranchi Das, also the coach- cum-custodian of the child prodigy told mediapesons here that Budhia would now run only 100 km 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 km 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 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 notice 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.

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

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

UNI