Jharkhand HC extends Lalu's provisional bail till Aug 20
Ranchi, Aug 10 : The Jharkhand High Court on Friday extended the provisional bail of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief Lalu Yadav till August 20.
According to a lawyer, the provisional bail period was ending on August 17 but Lalu Yadav's lawyers moved the High Court seeking a further three-month extension. The next hearing will take place on August 17.
Lalu Yadav was granted six weeks provisional bail for treatment in May, which was later extended by the High Court. He was in Ranchi's Birsa Munda Central Jail after being convicted in December 2017 in a fodder scam case.
He was also convicted in two other cases in January and March 2018 and was awarded 14 years imprisonment. In 2013, he was convicted in the first fodder scam case and sentenced to jail for five years.
The multi-million fodder scam had surfaced in the 1990s when Lalu Yadav was Bihar's Chief Minister. At the directive of Patna High Court, the probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 10 with recovery of one more body; 3 tourists still missing
Jabalpur (PTI): The body of a child was retrieved on Saturday evening from Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy that took place two days ago to ten, while search continued for three missing tourists.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening with some of the survivors alleging negligence and safety lapses such as life jackets not being distributed in time.
The body recovered on Saturday evening was possibly that of six-year-old Viraj Soni, said Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra.
"The identity will be confirmed after family members identify the body," he told PTI.
Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria, his five-year-old son Tamil, and another child Mayuram (5) who had come from southern India were still missing.
Authorities have arranged equipment to search deep waters of the dam and are getting a generator to facilitate diving operations, Mishra added.
Divers and disaster response teams have expanded the search radius to five km, he said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the ill-fated vessel, 28 were rescued, police said.
More than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, joined the search operation that resumed at 5 on Saturday morning. The operation, involving the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, was briefly affected at around 9 am due to strong winds, officials said.
Post-mortem examinations of nine deceased persons have been completed, Mishra said.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will also register a First Information Report in the case soon," he said.
Police said CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat while the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the tragedy and dismissed three crew members. It also banned operation of similar vessels in the state.
