Milkha leads 'Run with Sheroo'

'Flying Sikh' Milkha Singh, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, Ajit Pal Singh and Zafar Iqbal were among leading sports personalities who joined the 'Run with Sheroo', organised by the first Afro-Asian Games organising committee, in Delhi, on Wednesday morning.

The run was flagged off by the Union Home Minister L K Advani from Rajpath and terminated at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India gate.

'Sheroo', the lion cub mascot for the November 3 - 11 Games, led the run atop a car, followed by Milkha Singh and over a thousand children, dressed in colourful Afro-Asian Games T-shirts and holding flags.

"This run has been organized on the occasion of the birth anniversary of hockey wizard Dhyan Chand," Sports Minister Uma Bharti told the participants.

"I hope the Afro-Asian Games, to be held in Delhi in November this year, will inspire Indian sportsmen and the sports persons world over to excel in their respective sports," Advani said, before flagging off the run.

Among others who were present for the run were Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sushma Swaraj, who turned up in white salwar kameez, Minister of Tourism Ananth Kumar and former actors turned Members of Parliament Vinod Khanna and Jaya Prada. Indian Olympic Association president and working chairman of the Afro-Asian organising committee Suresh Kalmadi also graced the event as did former sports minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, now Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers.

Milkha Singh, who recently refused the Arjuna award for lifetime achievement, exchanged few words with Uma Bharti before the two posed together for a photograph. Bharti later introduced the great quarter-miler to Home Minister Advani.

Later Bharti went to the National stadium and garlanded the statue of Dhyan Chand.