Rajasthan: Probe launched after 6 men die in Alwar villages in 4 days
Jaipur, Apr 30 (PTI): The death of six people due to unconfirmed reasons in two villages located around Siliserh Lake in Alwar district in the last four days has prompted the district administration to initiate a probe.
Senior Rajasthan Congress leader and leader of opposition in the state assembly Tikaram Jully, however, alleged that the deaths occurred due to spurious liquor.
The administration, on its part, has ruled out the possibility of spurious liquor being a cause of the deaths.
Alwar Collector Artika Shukla confirmed on Wednesday that six men have died, but she said three of the deaths had no connection with liquor.
"Family members of one of the deceased men informed our team that he fell sick after pesticide spray on the farm, while another man who died was suffering from high BP. The family of the third man said that he was an asthma patient," said Shukla, who had sent a team of officials from the district administration and police to the villages.
The collector said that the exact cause cannot be ascertained since no postmortem was conducted.
The remaining three men who died were liquor addicts, but they were not taken to hospital by the family members after they fell sick, she informed.
"CMHO (chief medical and health officer) said that liver failure or high BP could be a probable cause of death," she said.
An investigation into the matter is underway. The district authorities, including the police, are probing the matter, including illicit liquor.
"According to the initial probe, the reasons for deaths are different. There is no confirmation of death due to liquor so far," Sanjeev Nain, Alwar SP, said.
Villagers said that Suresh Balmiki (45) died on Saturday, Ramkishore (47) and Ramkumar (39) died on Sunday, while Lalaram (60), Bharat (40) and Omi (65) died on Monday.
Balkishan, father of deceased Ramkumar, said that his son had come home after consuming a bottle of country-made liquor.
"After some time, his health deteriorated, and he died in the hospital," he told reporters in Alwar.
Targeting the state government over the issue, Jully claimed that the illicit liquor business flourished under the BJP rule.
"The government has turned a blind eye to this issue. The government is trying to hide the truth and death figures in Alwar," he alleged.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
