At least 2 Indians found dead in Australia house fire

June 1, 2012

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Melbourne, Jun 1: At least two members of an Indian family were found dead today after a fire tore through their Melbourne house, an incident suspected by police as a case of murder-suicide.

The bodies of the victims were found together in a back room of the home. Police are not yet able to give exact number of the deceased but said the house was home to four people.

Detectives said three people of Indian descent were known to be living in the house located in the suburb of Clayton South. At the time of fire it is believed that two boys aged five and 10 and their 37-year-old mother were there.

But police were yet to identify the bodies or determine exactly how many were dead, detective Geoff Maher said.

Police are also investigating whether the house fire was deliberately lit. Arson and explosives chemists and crime scene detectives were inspecting the scene.

Maher said police were considering the possibility of a murder-suicide.

"I'm not going to confirm that at this point in time," he said, adding "I'm keeping an open mind and so will the investigators."

He said police were trying to contact the woman's husband, who is believed to in India.

Police spokesman Adam West said emergency service officers found human remains after the fire was extinguished at 1.30am.

"Detectives believe that four people usually reside in the home and they are yet to be accounted for," he said.

Firefighters were called to the house just before 1am (local time) yesterday and found it well alight, the MFB said in a statement. The fire was brought under control within 40 minutes and firefighters then were able to gain entry to the house where they found two bodies.

"We have a number of deceased in the house but we're trying to piece the jigsaw together," Maher said, adding "We're unsure of what exactly we've got at this point in time and the DVI (disaster victim identification) process and the crime scene examination will take a while."

Neighbours made a desperate bid to get to the home's occupants, using an axe to try to break through the roller shutters and reach those inside, however they were unsuccessful.

Media reports quoted a close friend Jeanette Pereira as saying that the community was shocked at the incident.

"She was a very good lady, a very good mother. The children were very quiet. She looked after them well," she said.

She said the family had migrated to Australia from Canada.



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News Network
July 19,2020

New Delhi, Jul 19: At least six people were killed and 20 injured when a bus overturned after colliding with a private vehicle at Agra - Lucknow Expressway in the wee hours of Sunday. According to initial reports, the bus carrying around 40 passengers toppled after hitting a stranded SUV at around 5 am, 122 km from Lucknow.

A police team reached the spot within a few minutes of the accident and rescued the injured with the help of locals. They were rushed to a nearby hospital. “Five passengers were killed on the spot while another died minutes after reaching the hospital,” Hindustan Times quoted Kannauj DSP Amarendra PD Singh as saying.

Around 20 other passengers have also sustained injuries who were admitted to the hospital, the police said. The bus had started from Bihar's Darbhanga and was en route to Delhi. "The private bus was coming from Darbangha and going to Delhi when it hit a car. Both the vehicles came down from the highway," a senior police official told news agency ANI.

Meanwhile, authorities are trying to ascertain the identity of the deceased. UP CM Yogi Adityanath expressed over the loss of lives and directed officials to ensure all help to the victims.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 10: The man who fled from the Medical College Hospital where he was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 committed suicide on Wednesday morning after being brought back. He used his bed sheet to hang himself from the ceiling.

Hailing from Anad near Nedumangadu, the man, who was undergoing treatment in the isolation room set up at KHRWS pay ward, escaped from the hospital and boarded two KSRTC buses to reach his home.

The Health Department had said the latest tests had returned negative and he was to be discharged on Wednesday. However, City Police Commissioner Balram Kumar Upadhyay had claimed that one more test result of the person was awaited.

The man was blocked by locals upon his arrival at Anad. He was later taken back to the hospital and the police had registered a case against him under the Kerala Public Health Act and Epidemic Diseases Ordinance.

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News Network
June 10,2020

Jun 10: In a suspected case of honor killing in Telangana, a 20-year old woman was allegedly smothered to death by her parents for being in love with a man from another caste, becoming pregnant and refusing to undergo an abortion, police said on Tuesday.

The parents killed their daughter using a pillow while she was asleep in the early hours of June 7 in their house in Kalukuntla in Jogulamba-Gadwal district and sought to project it as natural death, claiming she died of a heart attack.

However, following specific information and suspicion raised by the village secretary over the death of the woman, a college student, a probe was launched and the couple arrested on charges of murder under Indian Penal Code section 302 after post-mortem, police said.

The parents decided to kill the woman, the youngest of their three daughters, a day after she was found pregnant and refused to undergo an abortion, police said.

The woman had fallen in love with the man while pursuing her degree course in Kurnool district in neighboring Andhra Pradesh and informed her parents about it after she was found pregnant during an examination by a doctor. Her parents feared that their daughter may elope with her lover and brought pressure on her to go for abortion.

Though initially, she agreed, later she declined, following which they killed her and told everyone that their daughter died of heart attack, the police official said. When a police team went to their house and insisted on a post-mortem after noticing some marks on her body indicating a struggle, the parents tried to stop it, saying there was no need.

Later, police shifted the body to a hospital where a post-mortem revealed the woman was "throttled to death". Her parents during interrogation confessed to killing their daughter, the official said, adding they were arrested.

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