Police arrest boy's marathon coach

Indian police arrested a sports coach on Monday on suspicion of torturing a five-year-old boy who became a national celebrity…

Indian police arrested a sports coach on Monday on suspicion of torturing a five-year-old boy who became a national celebrity for running the equivalent of nearly two marathons.

Last year, Budhia Singh entered the Limca Book of Records, India's own version of the famous Guinness publication, after running 65 km (40 miles) without rest in seven hours and two minutes under the stewardship of Biranchi Das, his coach.

Rights groups at the time said making money by encouraging a child to run long distances was abuse and exploitation, and harmful to the boy's health.

On Sunday, the boy accused his coach of beating him and withholding food, and said he would give up running.

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Police said today they had arrested Mr Das and charged him with criminal intimidation.

Mr Das says Singh's family are making up charges as a result of a few petty rows. Mr Das said he recently expelled Singh's sister from a judo school he runs because she was misbehaving, and that he refused to build Singh's mother a new house.

But Singh showed reporters on Sunday scars he said were left by the coach's mistreatment.

"He hung me upside down from a ceiling fan," he told reporters, smiling and fidgeting. "He locked me in a room for two days without food."

Mr Das denies the charges and says the scars are old, the result of his tough early childhood in a slum in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar.

Singh is once again living with his mother in the city slum.