10 poll personnel among 14 dead in Bihar due to heatstroke
Patna (PTI): Fourteen people, including 10 polling personnel, have died due to heatstroke in Bihar in the last 24 hours, officials said on Friday afternoon.
In a statement issued by the Disaster Management Department, most of the fatalities were reported from Bhojpur, where five officials on election duty died of heatstroke.
Three election officials died in Rohtas, and one each died in Kaimur and Aurangabad districts, it said.
Four other people died in different parts of the state, it added.
The process of granting ex-gratia to the families of the deceased has been initiated, said the statement.
The state is reeling under sizzling heat as the mercury crossed 44 degrees Celsius at several places. On Thursday, Buxar was the hottest at 47.1 degrees Celsius.
Due to the heatwave conditions, all schools, coaching institutes and anganwadi centres were shut till June 8.
In a post on X, leader of opposition Tejashwi Yadav said, "When government-run schools have already been closed because of pressure from the opposition, why are teachers being asked to come to schools in this intense heat wave conditions? What will teachers do when students themselves are not in school? Teachers must be given leave in this scorching heat."
Elections to the 40 Lok Sabha seats were being held over seven phases, with polling in eight seats scheduled on Saturday.
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Dalit outfits call state-wide hartal over dental student’s death
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Various Dalit organisations on Monday announced a state-wide hartal seeking justice in the death of Kannur Dental College student Nithin Raj.
The hartal will be observed on Tuesday from 6 am to 6 pm.
As many as 52 Dalit organisations, including Justice for Nithin Raj Action Council, have announced the strike.
Organisations requesting cooperation for the strike said that no vehicles will be forcibly stopped and that all essential services are exempted.
Raj, a first-year BDS student at a private dental college in Anjarakkandy in Kannur district, was found critically injured after falling from a building on April 10 and later succumbed to his injuries.
Police have registered a case against two faculty members on charges of abetment of suicide and under provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, following allegations by the student’s family that he was subjected to caste- and complexion-based harassment.
Kerala Pinnokka Samudaya Munnani (KPSM), one of the organisations supporting the hartal, alleged in a statement that police had shown apathy in the investigation and were attempting to protect the accused in the case.
KPSM state president K V Padmanabhan and general secretary S Anwar alleged that the probe into Raj’s death was being deliberately misdirected and delayed.
While the family has firmly alleged that caste discrimination and mental harassment by faculty members led to the student’s death, police were attempting to divert the investigation towards loan app borrowings, they claimed.
The organisation alleged that this was a planned move to shield the real accused.
KPSM further alleged that by deliberately delaying the arrest of the accused teachers, police enabled them to secure anticipatory bail.
They said there was no confidence in the present police investigation and demanded that the case be handed over to an independent agency at the earliest.
