Coach tortured boy wonder marathon runner

Last updated at 18:44 13 August 2007


The Indian coach of a boy wonder marathon faces jail for torturing the child.

Biranchi Das is accused of torturing Budhia Singh, six, who became an instant celebrity in record-crazy India when he 40 miles at the tender age of four.

The boy's mother, Sukanti Singh, told police she discovered scars on her son's body.

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Marathon boy wonder

She later told reporters Budhia was tied up to a ceiling fan and had boiling water thrown on him.

Police officials in Bhubaneshwar, the the capital of the eastern state of Orissa in India, have arrested and charged Das.

Ms Singh, who had supported Das' efforts to train her son so much she let them live together, said: "Biranchi was beating him up regularly. He even once tied Budhia up from a ceiling fan and threw hot water on his body."

The boy was taken to a hospital for examinations, and was assigned security guards after his mother claimed Das has threatened their lives.

Das denied the allegations, calling the charges 'a conspiracy against me hatched by the state government's child welfare department.'

The department had condemned the boy's participation in marathons as 'torture' in May, a month before police stopped him from making a 60 mile walk in scorching heat across east India.

In 2006, Singh attempted to run a 43 mile marathon, sparking protests from child rights activists.

Doctors stopped him after 40 miles, when he showed signs of extreme exhaustion.

They found the child to be undernourished, anemic and under cardiac stress.

Ms Singh also complained that Das was not fairly sharing the money he had earned from the boy's long-distance exploits.

"He has given me very little, but he was earning a lot of money from my son's hard work," she said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Budhia Singh's father died when the boy was 7 months old.

Das, who met the family two years ago, has said in the past he has raised Budhia as his son.

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