One killed, two injured in explosion at TMC office

Visakhapatnam, Jun 30: Two people were killed and four others were taken ill after benzene gas leaked at a pharmaceutical company at Parawada near here early on Tuesday morning, official sources said.

The situation was now under control as the leak was restricted to one unit in the Sainor Life Sciences company, the sources said.

The two killed were senior employees of the company, they said.

The injured persons have been admitted to a hospital in Gajuwaka, with one of them being put on ventilator support, the sources added.

District Collector V Vinay Chand and Police Commissioner R K Meena visited the company to take stock of the situation.

The cause of the leak that took place in a reactor unit at the plant is yet to be established.

The incident comes nearly two months after 11 people were killed and over 1000 taken ill after gas leak at a chemical plant here.

Thane, Jul 19: A 34-year-old man was arrested on Saturday for allegedly killing his wife after picking up a fight as he did not like the food she cooked, Thane police said.

Sachin Godane, a resident of Gaikwad Pada in Ambernath, locked his two children and an aunt in one room of the house on Friday afternoon and brutally beat up his wife Chandrakala (28) with a log and then strangled her, said Assistant Inspector JB Bhoyer of Shivajinagar police station.

Godane has been remanded in police custody for four days, he added. 

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.