44 days after they went missing, bodies of two workers found in Assam mine
Guwahati, Feb 19 (PTI): Divers fished out decomposed bodies of two more miners trapped inside a coal mine in Assam's Dima Hasao district on Wednesday, 44 days after they went missing in the quarry, an official said.
With this recovery, six of the nine miners who had been trapped there on January 6 were found.
Dewatering operation in the mine at Umrangshu has been continuing for over one month. The two highly decomposed corpses were spotted by the divers who went in and brought them out.
The bodies are yet to be identified, the official said.
Nine workers were trapped inside the mine on January 6 and the body of one was recovered two days later while those of three others were found on January 11.
An ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh each has been paid by the government to the next of kin of the four miners whose bodies were recovered earlier and Rs six lakh each to the family of those trapped inside.
The state government had announced that the family of all trapped inside the mine would be paid a total of Rs 10 lakh each.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that if the dewatering continues at the current rate, it will take about 25 to 60 days for the process to be completed, and it will continue till a ‘logical conclusion’ is reached.
The chief minister had earlier claimed that the mine was abandoned 12 years ago and was under the Assam Mineral Development Corporation till three years ago.
The state government has also announced a judicial enquiry into the incident, with retired high court judge Anima Hazarika heading the one-person committee.
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Four booked for tying 18-year-old to tree, beating him up in UP's Pratapgarh
Pratapgarh (UP) (PTI): Four people were booked here for the abduction and assault of a man who they allegedly tied to a tree and beat up, police said on Wednesday.
The incident, a video of which has gone viral, took place on Tuesday afternoon under the Kunda police station limits.
The FIR was registered on Wednesday evening based on a complaint from the victim's father.
According to Keshav Prasad Yadav, a resident of Mauli village, some people called his 18-year-old son Nikhil Yadav on the phone and asked him to come out of his house around 2.30 pm on Tuesday.
As he reached outside the village as instructed, the accused allegedly forced him into a car and took him towards the Tinpedwa forest area, where they tied him to a tree and assaulted, the complainant said.
The attackers also recorded a video of the incident and circulated it on social media. The purported video shows the men thrashing Nikhil one after another, while one of them is assumed to have recorded the act.
Kunda Station House Officer Manoj Pandey confirmed the incident and said efforts are underway to identify and arrest all the accused.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has shared the video on social media, describing the incident as reflective of a "dominant mindset" against the PDA (Pichda or Backward, Dalit, and Alpasankhyak or Minority), and demanded strict action against the accused.
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