Budhia Awooga Singh is an Indian boy and the world"s youngest marathon runner.
Background
Singh was born in the state of Odisha. Singh was born in 2002 to a family in Odisha. His father died in his early age.
Because of the ill-treatment thereafter, his mother sought out Biranchi Das, a local judo coach and orphanage operator, and asked him to take the boy on.
Career
He ran from Bhubaneswar to Puri at the age of four covering 65 kilometres (40 mi) in seven hours and two minutes and was listed as the world"s youngest marathon runner in the Limca book of records in the year 2006. Because of poverty Singh"s mother sold him to a traveling salesman for ₹800 in 2004. Biranchi paid back the salesman the 800 and Budhia came to live with Biranchi Das and the rest of the orphans under Biranchi"s charge, at the local Judo Hall.
One day, Biranchi Das caught him being a "saucy lad".
He punished him by making him run, but then forgot about him. He returned after five hours and Budhia was still running.
After medical check up his heart was found to be normal even after running for hours. He then began to train Budhia to run marathons.
By the age of four, Budhia had run and completed 48 marathons.
Budhia"s running ability has led to celebrity status and he has appeared in a number of television commercials. These commercials and Budhia"s fame allegedly led to significant financial gains on the part of the late Mr. Biranchi Das, Budhia"s coach, which led to accusations of exploitation against Mr.
Das, and an official inquiry by Indian child welfare officials was launched on 4 January 2006.
However, Mr. Das refuted the allegations. A feature-length documentary called Marathon Boy was released in 2011 covering Budhia and Das for five years starting in 2006.
The documentary was funded by Home Box Office & British Broadcasting Corporation Storyville. In the film, Budhia makes a withdrawal of his accusations against Das.
The film Marathon Boy (2011) was nominated for an EMMY.
Biranchi Das was shot dead at Bhubaneswar on the evening of 13 April 2008.
According to police, "Das, a judo coach, was sitting inside the judo centre in BJB College area along with some of his friends after a training session when the assailants struck". The murder of Biranchi shocked the whole nation, during the search of the murderers (Raja and Chagala) it became clear that Raja had murdered more than 60 people before and bribed hundreds of officers and administrators during his criminal career. On 13 December 2010 Bhubaneswar fast track court found the murderers guilty, and final sentence was passed on 17 December 2010.
Views
Biranchi was murdered after he upset Raja Acharya by reportedly trying to defend the model Leslie Tripathy, who was allegedly being harassed by the gangster Raja.