Two dead in clash over construction of Power Grid sub-station

January 18, 2017

Kolkata, Jan 18: Two persons were killed in the Bhangor area of South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on Tuesday as clashes broke out between the police and villagers opposing construction of a Power Grid sub- station in the area.

protestVillagers, who blocked roads and damaged several police vehicles, claimed that police had opened fire on the protesters while police said the firing took place between two groups of protesters in which the casualty took place.

When asked about reports of police firing in the area, Sharma said "There has been no police firing. The police didn't fire a single shot. The work of the Power Grid station has already stopped. The person was declared dead on arrival at the hospital and the other person is undergoing treatment."

The West Bengal government has declared that the project has been stopped.

According to a highly-placed source at the state Secretariat Nabanna, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today asked the police to exercise restraint and refrain from opening fire in Bhangor.

In a tweet, Banerjee had earlier in the day said "No land will be acquired if people don't want to give away land. Proposed power grid will be relocated if required." Her party later on removed the tweet and said it should be ignored.

A senior police officer said the police were attacked by the villagers and a few of them were injured by stones and bricks thrown at them.

To bring the situation under control, police resorted to bursting tear gas shells and lathicharge, he said.

Villagers on the other hand alleged that the police resorted to unprovoked lathicharge, teargassing and firing.

State Power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said "Police did not retaliate, but only chased away the villagers when stones and bricks were thrown at them."

"There was no reason for the protests as the state government has already halted the project following protests by the people. I had invited them (farmers and villagers) several times for a meeting, but they kept on refusing.

"The state government has stopped the project as per their demand. Still they are creating problems in the area. I do not see any logic behind this... I have doubts about their real intention," Chattopadhyay said.

"If the sub-station was set up, everyone would have got electricity, whether they belonged to TMC, CPI(M), Congress or BJP," he added.

Local MLA and state Food Processing and Horticulture minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah rushed to the area following instructions from the Chief Minister.

On Banerjee's instruction, forces from Kolkata Police and other commissionerates have been asked to rush to the place to maintain law and order, the secretariat source said.

The Chief Minister also directed the Police to nab around 30-40 "outsiders", who could be Maoists and backed by a section of Jadavpur University students, responsible for instigating the villagers and farmers in Bhangor for such violent protests, he said.

Police were posted at neighbouring Machhi Bhanga and Tona last night following demonstrations by villagers protesting the setting up of the substation by Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

The incident has also kicked off a political storm with the opposition CPI(M) and BJP condemning the incident.

"Then in opposition, it was the TMC which had opposed Nandigram and Singur. But, now they themselves are using brute force to acquire land. We condemn this. The police action and atrocity in Bhangor should immediately stop," CPI(M) Politburo member Mohammed Salim said.

BJP too condemned the police action and said it should immediately stop.

"Police action should immediately stop there. Why is the state government so intolerant and arrogant that it can't talk to the locals? We will visit the place soon," BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said.

Reacting to the allegations, senior TMC leader and state Parliamentary Affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said political parties should not fish in troubled waters.

"They should not equate Nandigram with this incident. In Nandigram CPI(M) went for forcible land acquisition, but our policy is not forcible land acquisition. Work has already stopped, so why are they protesting," Chatterjee said.

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Agencies
May 27,2020

Mumbai, May 27: "Crime Patrol" actress Preksha Mehta has committed suicide. She was 25.

Preksha took her life by hanging from a ceiling fan on Monday night at her residence in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reports timesofindia.com.

The actress reportedly left a suicide note but it does not mention why she decided to end her life. As per reports, Preksha went into depression due to lack of work amid the lockdown.

Her last few social media posts hint at mental agony she was going through. In her last Instagram story, Preksha wrote: "Sabse bura hota hai sapno ka mar jaana" (the worst thing is the death of your dreams)."

Apart from "Crime Patrol", Preksha has appeared in TV soaps like "Meri Durga" and "Laal Ishq".

This is the second suicide by a TV actor during the ongoing lockdown, when all shooting activity has come to a halt for two months now. A few days ago, actor Manmeet Grewal took his life by hanging from the ceiling fan at his Mumbai home. Reportedly, the actor was in a financial crisis and had run into huge debts.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Mumbai, Feb 10: Ankita Pisudde, a resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, was critical after sustaining 40% burns on February 3 when she was set afire, allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on her way to college.

The 25-year-old woman lecturer who was set on fire by a stalker in Maharashtra’s Wardha district last week died at a hospital in Nagpur on Monday morning, a police official said.

Ankita Pisudde, resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, had been critical after sustaining 35 to 40% “grade III” burns on February 3 when she was set afire allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on way to her college, they said.

She was undergoing treatment at the Orange City Hospital & Research Centre here, located around 75 km from Wardha.

“Doctors at the hospital declared her dead at 6.55 a.m. today,” Hinganghat’s police inspector Satyaveer Bandiwar said.

The woman sustained deep burn injuries on scalp, face, right upper limb, left hand, upper back, neck and eyes along with severe inhalational injuries, the hospital said in a medical bulletin on Monday.

She died of “septicemic shock” after suffering from deep dermal burns along with severe inhalational injuries, respiratory distress and related complications, it said.

Around 4 a.m. on Monday, her oxygen levels deteriorated inspite of ventilator support, coupled with decreasing urine output and reduction in blood pressure, the hospital said.

As part of immediate resuscitation measures, medicines were escalated to maintain the blood pressure and all feasible steps were taken to improve the oxygen levels in blood, but the patient remained “extremely critical”, it said.

“Around 6.30 a.m., she had bradycardia and inspite of prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the patient could not be revived and was declared dead at 6.55 a.m.,” it said.

The probable cause of death was “septicemic shock”, the bulletin added.

During her treatment, she underwent tracheostomy (creating an opening in neck to place a tube into the windpipe to allow air to enter the lungs), burn dressings, debridement and escharotomies, the hospital informed.

Debridement is a medical procedure to remove dead, damaged or infected tissue, while escharotomy is a surgical procedure used to treat full-thickness (third-degree) circumferential burns.

The woman’s parents and uncle were kept informed about her deteriorating health condition and death, the hospital said, adding that the body was later handed over to police for postmortem and other formalities.

After the woman’s condition deteriorated, the hospital informed about her critical status to Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Wardha Guardian Minister Sunil Kedar, Nagpur Divisional Commissioner Sanjeev Kumar, Police Commissioner Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay, Wardha Collector Vivek Bhimanwar and Wardha Superintendent of Police Basavraj Teli.

Heavy security was deployed in Hinganghat to avoid any law and order problem following her death, the police said.

Several locals, mostly women and college students, took out a march in Wardha city last Thursday, demanding death penalty for the accused.

Home Minister Deshmukh visited the hospital on Tuesday and announced that the accused’s trial would be fast-tracked.

The State government last week flew Navi Mumbai-based National Burns Centre director Sunil Keswani to Nagpur to supervise the woman’s treatment.

It has also appointed well-known lawyer Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case.

According to the victim’s relatives, Nagrale, who was arrested within hours of the incident on February 3, had been harassing her for quite some time.

Nagrale and the woman were friends till two years ago when she severed ties with him due to his “irrational behaviour”, the police earlier said.

A special team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Trupti Jadhav will probe the case, the Wardha Police said last week.

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News Network
January 20,2020

Ahmedabad, Jan 20: Cops in Gandhinagar fell in a catch-22 situation when a state government employee approached them with a complaint that the 26-year-old woman class teacher of his 14-year-old son had gone missing taking his son in tow. The man, who works at Udyog Bhavan in Gandhinagar said the woman had seduced his teenage son, who studies in class VIII and taken him away with her. The boy had gone missing from 4pm on Friday, and the classteacher was also missing.

A police official said the woman teacher had been too intimate with the allegedly missing boy for around a year, and the school authorities had recently rebuked them. “As their relationship was unaccepted, they left their homes on Friday,” he said. It was rare to find a case of a woman teacher eloping with her teenage student, the official added.

An FIR for elopement under Section 363 IPC has been registered with Kalol city police in Gandhinagar district. The complaint stated the teacher is a resident of Darbari chawl in Kalol town.

“When I reached home at around 7pm, I found my son missing. My wife told me he had left home at around 4pm. We searched for him in the neighbourhood and among relatives, but couldn’t trace him,” claims the teenage boy’s father in the FIR. “I went to the teacher’s house but they were not there,” the man stated.

Inspector K K Desai of Kalol city police said the missing duo could not be traced as they were not carrying cellphones.

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