Five of a family attempt suicide, three succumb

Tikamgarh, Jul 25: Promise of providing housing to the poor has been made by both Centre as well as State governments but a Dalit family in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh is forced to live in a toilet for the last several years.

However, the administration denied that the family is living in the toilet.

Maganlal Ahirwar, his wife and four children live in Keshavgarh Gram Panchayat of Mohangarh area of Tikamgarh district. All of them have been living in the toilet for four years. Ahirwar's wife Phula Devi said she told the authorities several times that her family didn't get house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, but no one listened. The couple even got their daughter married in the same toilet.

They even got an electricity connection and gas connection under the Ujjwala scheme.

Mohangarh tehsildar Dr. Abhijeet Singh told media persons, "I got to know about the case and have asked for the report. Maganlal Ahirwar came to the office two-three days ago and denied that he was living in the toilet with his family. He has an ancestral house in the village."

He might have lived in a toilet earlier but currently he is not living there, Dr. Singh added.

Panipat, Mar 3: A 22-year-old man was charred to death after he came in contact with a live electricity wire while posing for a TikTok video near the Matlaudha railway station here, police said on Tuesday.

The incident took place on Monday evening when Vikas, a resident of Dharamgarh village, climbed a pole over which the wire was passing and posed for the video, police said.

His three friends were standing below when the accident took place.

Vikas came in contact with the wire carrying 25,000 volts current and was burnt, police said.

Police have sent the body for a post-mortem and started investigation into the matter.

The West Bengal government has suspended two women teachers in East Burdwan district on the charge of teaching pre-primary students from an English alphabet book consisting of a portion derogatory to the people with a dark complexion.

While presenting the alphabets with corresponding words and images, the book says U is for "Ugly". The illustration printed beside the letter is that of a boy with a dark complexion.

"The book is not part of the textbooks referred by the education department. It was introduced by the school itself. We have zero-tolerance for acts which instil prejudices into the minds of students," Education Minister Partha Chatterjee told reporters here on Thursday.

He said the two teachers of a local municipality-run school have been placed under suspension with immediate effect based on a preliminary investigation and stricter action would be taken against them later.

Though the school is now closed because of the lockdown, the matter came to light when the father of a student of the school was teaching him with the help of that book. He informed other parents and the education department was apprised of the issue, sources said.