Police today prevented the five-year-old Indian boy, who sparked controversy when he became the world's youngest marathon runner, from embarking on his next feat -- a 500km walkathon across eastern India.
Officers lined the sun-scorched road in Orissa's capital Bubaneshwa to block Budhia Singh 's path, citing a
government order that declared the child's 65 km run last year to be "torture".
"We have an order that Budhia Singh should not be allowed to participate in the proposed walkathon," police superintendent Amitabh Thakur told reporters as temperatures hovered near 40 degrees.
Budhia, dubbed "marathon boy", had been attempting a ten-day trek from the capital of eastern Orissa state to Calcutta in neighbouring West Bengal.
As police moved in, a small crowd of the boy's supporters unfurled homemade banners, chanting "Long Live Budhia", and started a sit-in.
The boy's coach and foster father, Biranchi Das, said he would file an appeal with the local court.
Little Budhia was thrust into the spotlight after he clocked up an uninterrupted 65 km in seven hours and two minutes in May last year, running straight into the Limca Book of Records (India's equivalent of the Guinness Book of Records).
Initially touted as a mini Forest Gump and India's next sporting hero, he appeared in TV commercials and toured the country in scenes reminiscent of a Victorian travelling circus.
But the mood swiftly turned sour after protests from child rights activists.
He was taken away for testing by state doctors who declared him undernourished, anaemic and under cardiac stress.
Despite his tender years, Budhia's story so far is as fantastic as his ability to run.
He grew up in a dirt-poor slum with his mother, who made a living washing dishes.
She sold her son when he was three for the equivalent of ten pounds to a street hawker as she could not afford to feed him and his sisters after her husband, a beggar, died.
Soon afterwards Mr Das spotted Budhia misbehaving inside the judo ground and set him to run around the track as punishment.
He then went off to work and, so the story goes, forgot about him.
When he returned five hours later the boy was still running.
"I was amazed," he recalled.
"I knew he was something extraordinary. "Mr Das, a local judo instructor, says he has Budhia's best interests at heart and just wants to train him up for the 2016 Olympics.
- INDEPENDENT
