‘Driver turned robber’ held, Dh7m recovered

Guna (MP),  Jun 27: A 20-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly eloping with her minor partner and "marrying" her at Guna town in Madhya Pradesh, police said on Saturday.

The matter came to light, when a resident of Budhe Balaji area approached the Kotwali police station on Monday with a complaint that his 17-year-old daughter had gone missing, additional superintendent of police T S Baghel said.

On investigation, it was found that a relative from a village Shivpuri district, who was living with the family, was also missing, he said.

A team was sent to the village and the duo was caught on Friday, the official said, adding that the woman had married the minor, who claimed that she had eloped of her own volition.

The woman was arrested under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, while the minor was sent back to her family after counselling.

Shillong, May 9: The poisonous mushrooms that killed six people at a remote village in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district have been identified as Amanita phalloides, commonly known as the 'Death Cap', a senior official said on Saturday.

Six people, including a 14-year-old girl, of Lamin village along the India-Bangladesh border in Amlarem civil sub-division died after consuming wild mushrooms they collected from a nearby forest late last month.

The wild mushroom has been identified as Amanita phalloides and is hepatotoxic as it directly affects the liver, state Director of Health Services (MI) Dr Aman War told PTI.

He said it has been established after an investigation that the cause of the deaths was the poisonous mushrooms.

At least 18 persons from three families were taken ill after consuming the mushrooms.

The symptoms after consuming the poisonous fungus include vomiting, headache and unconsciousness, the senior doctor said.

Most of those taken ill, including a pregnant woman, have already recovered and gone home. Therefore, people can survive as it depends on the amount of poison that you have consumed. Only one person was unaffected, maybe he did not consume much, he said.

Three people are still undergoing treatment and are recovering. Two of them are at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) and one in Woodland Hospital, Dr War said.

He said the health department can only appeal to the people, especially those in the rural areas, to refrain from eating wild mushrooms, while the horticulture department should take measures to create awareness.

Hyderabad, MAY 28: A three-year-old boy who accidentally fell into a newly drilled open borewell in Telangana's Medak district was found dead in the early hours of Thursday, police said.

The kid's body was retrieved at around 4 am after a nearly 10 hours' long rescue operation involving different agencies, they said.

"He died a while before we evacuated him, most likely due to the mud that covered him from the top sealing off necessary oxygen supply, " Medak District Superintendent of Police Chandana Deepti told PTI.

The boy had accidentally slipped into the 120- feet borewell at around 5 pm on Wednesday in an agricultural field located in Papannapet mandal of the district when he was walking with his grandfather and father, police earlier said.

As part of rescue efforts, a parallel trench was dug along the borewell hole with the help of earth excavating machines and oxygen was supplied into it, but the efforts went in vain as the boy's body was found stuck at a depth of around 25 feet, the police said.

Apart from the police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel were also involved in the rescue operation.

The borewell into which the child fell was one among the three dug by the family since Tuesday night to try and find water for their fields. But none of them yielded any water, police had said.