New Delhi(PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi left the ED office after about four hours of questioning in the National Herald money-laundering case on Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear if he would come back and resume the session or the questioning was over for the day.

Gandhi (51) arrived at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) headquarters on APJ Abdul Kalam Road in central Delhi around 11:05 am, accompanied by his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and his statement was recorded under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said.

The MP from Wayanad in Kerala spent over 10 hours at the federal agency's office on Monday, where he was questioned over multiple sessions and his statement was recorded.

The investigating officer of the case is understood to have questioned the former Congress chief about the incorporation of the Young Indian company, the operations of the National Herald newspaper, the loan given by the Congress to Associated Journals Limited (AJL) and the funds transfer within the news media establishment.

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Tehran (AP/PTI): A methane leak sparked an explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran, killing at least 19 people and injuring another 17, Iranian state television reported Sunday.

The report said the deaths happened at a coal mine in Tabas, some 540 kilometers (335 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Authorities were sending emergency personnel to the area after the blast late Saturday, it said. Around 70 people had been working there at the time of the blast.

Oil-producing Iran is also rich in a variety of minerals. Iran annually consumes some 3.5 million tons of coal but only extracts about 1.8 million tons from its mines per year. The rest is imported, often consumed in the country's steel mills.

This is not the first disaster to strike Iran's mining industry. In 2013, 11 workers were killed in two separate mining incidents. In 2009, 20 workers were killed in several incidents. In 2017, a coal mine explosion killed at least 42 people.

Lax safety standards and inadequate emergency services in mining areas are often blamed for the fatalities.