Minor UP swimmer may end up as another Budhia Singh

Eleven-year-old Shraddha Shukla, an ace swimmer who has embarked on a marathon swimming mission of 300 kilometres from Kanpur to Varanasi in the swollen Ganga river, may end up with a fate similar to that of Budhia Singh, the marathon runner from Orissa who was banned from continuing with the sport. The Akhilesh government and the UP Commission for Protection of Child Rights have set up an inquiry to ascertain whether the girl was being forced by her father to undertake the marathon swimming expedition and whether she was physically strong enough to do so at her age.

It may be recalled that journalist-turned-film maker Vinod Kapri had alleged over the weekend that Shraddha’s father Lalit Shukla’s claim that his daughter was swimming 70 to 80 kilometres per day was false and the girl was seem travelling on a boat. Vinod Kapri, who arrived in Allahabad to make a film on Shraddha, now known as Jalpari, after hearing about the mission, said, “I felt that the girl’s efforts must be shown to the people and so I decided to film her journey. However, I found that her father’s claim was false and she swims for only about a kilometre or two when she approaches a Ghat or sees people waiting for her. At other times, she travels conveniently on a boat.” The filmmaker had a showdown with the girl’s father in Mirzapur and the two lodged cross FIRs against each other. While Lalit Shukla accused the filmmaker of humiliating his daughter, Vinod Kapri said that he was threatened by Shukla.

Ms Nahid Lari, member of the Child Commission, said that since the matter involved a minor girl, it was the duty of the Commission to get to the bottom of the case. A senior district official in Kanpur, meanwhile, said that it was risky for the girl to undertake such strenuous expeditions and should be stopped from continuing further. Her father said, “This will be another case of Budhia when a budding sportsperson will be sacrificed at the altar of bureaucracy and powerful people.