Palakkad: One more Maoist believed killed; death toll touches 4
Palakkad: One more Maoist is suspected to be dead in the ongoing operation by the specialised Thunderbolt squad near Attapady here, police said on Tuesday.
A top police official told PTI that the one who died on Tuesday was injured in the gunfight the previous day, taking the toll to four. Three suspected Maoists, including a woman, were killed in the operation on Monday.
"It seems like one more member of the insurgents was found dead. We are waiting for the confirmation. But there are also reports of firing at the inquest team members from the forest," the official said.
Opposition Congress on Tuesday alleged in the Assembly that the ruling Left has made it as a policy to eliminate the insurgents instead of bringing them to justice.
With the current operation resulting in the death of four Maoists, the total toll, since the government came to power in 2016, has gone upto seven.
"We are opposing the ideologies of Maoists. But we cannot agree to the fake encounters to kill them," Opposition Congress Leader Chennithala told media.
He had earlier told the Assembly that during the previous Congress-rule, they had captured two wanted Maoists -- Rupesh and Shina -- instead of killing them in fake encounters.
"When a Left government is ruling, such alleged encounters are taking place. While we were in power, we captured them instead of killing them," Chennithala said.
A suspected Maoist leader C P Jaleel was killed early in March this year in an exchange of fire with police personnel at a resort in Wayanad which lasted several hours.
Two other Maoists were also killed in a similar encounter in 2016. The state leadership of the CPI told media that it was too early to confirm whether it was a gunfight or a fake encounter.
The bodies of the killed insurgents would be brought to Thrissur by Tuesday evening and a postmortem would take place on Wednesday, police said.
A bomb disposal squad and top police officials are still in the forest. The special team was combing the area after a tip-off about Maoist presence in the area. Kerala Thunderbolts is an elite command force of the Kerala Police under the India Reserve Battalion.
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Mathura boat capsize tragedy: Death toll climbs to 13
Mathura (UP)(PTI): With the recovery of two more bodies on Sunday, the death toll in the boat capsize incident in the Yamuna river in Mathura has climbed to 13, officials said on Sunday.
Search for three more missing persons is underway.
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Suresh Chandra Rawat said renewed search efforts led to the recovery of the body of a college student, identified as Dinki Bansal, near Devraha Baba Ghat and that of a man identified as Rishabh Sharma approximately 3 km away from the accident site.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon when a boat carrying over two dozen tourists, primarily from Punjab, hit a floating drum of a pontoon bridge and capsized near Kesi Ghat in Vrindavan.
Most of the victims were from Jagraon and Dugri areas of Ludhiana district.
Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) along with the district administration and local police were actively engaged in the search for the missing pilgrims.
However, strong currents of the Yamuna river and the significant depth of the water at the ghats are proving a hindrance.
Circle Officer (Mant) Sandeep Singh said the Yamuna river stretch extending from Keshi Ghat to Gokul Barrage has been divided into seven sectors.
The search for the missing individuals will now be conducted within this specific 20-square-km zone. A Station House Officer (SHO) has been designated as the in-charge for each sector.
Acting on the orders of the DIG (Agra Range), seven SHOs will oversee operations across the seven sectors of river Yamuna.
Giving details about the operation, Additional District Magistrate (Finance and Revenue) Pankaj Kumar Verma, citing NDRF officials, on Saturday had said although the search for the missing persons is currently focused within a 14-km radius from the spot where the boat had capsized, there is a possibility that they may have been swept much further downstream.
SHO of Vrindavan police station Sanjay Pandey said boat operator Pappu was arrested late on Friday night.
He is accused of failing to provide life jackets to passengers before allowing them to board the boat, and operating the boat at high speed. This resulted in the boat losing control and colliding with a pontoon bridge's drum, which led to the accident, officials said.
Police have registered a case and also arrested the contractor, Narayan Sharma, responsible for the repair work on the pontoon bridge.
Rawat said that on Friday evening, police registered a case under section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against the boatman Pappu (alias Dauji) and Sharma, and subsequently arrested them.
According to the case details, Pappu's boat did not have any safety equipment or provisions whatsoever.
Moreover, despite repeated pleas from pilgrims, Pappu operated the boat at high speed. By the time he realised the danger upon approaching the pontoons of the bridge, it was already too late.
Consequently, after colliding with a pontoon drum, the boat lost control and capsized. It has also come to light that he is among those operators who have not obtained the requisite license to operate a boat.
Sharma was carrying out the work of dismantling and reassembling the pontoon bridge without providing any prior notification.
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