Sacked LJP leader accuses party president Chirag Paswan of Maoist links
Patna, Dec 7: Keshav Singh, a former general secretary of the Bihar unit of the LJP, has lodged a police complaint against party president Chirag Paswan accusing him of having links with underground Maoist outfits.
Keshav Singh was expelled from the party last week after he issued a number of statements in the media criticising Paswan for pulling out of the NDA and going solo in the recently held assembly election.
Singh lodged a complaint at the Shastri Nagar police station here on Sunday, alleging that he had received a threatening telephone call from Amar Azad, a close aide to Paswan, after he criticised the LJP leadership and flagged lack of internal democracy.
In the FIR, Singh also alleged that Paswan, who represents Jamui in the Lok Sabha, has maintained "close links" with Maoists.
He also claimed that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the son of LJP founder and former union minister late Ram Vilas Paswan, made his electoral debut, the help of Maoists was taken to ensure his victory.
The LJP had fought the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019 as an NDA ally.
Police said the allegations made against Chirag Paswan are "under investigation".
Meanwhile, reacting to the complaint lodged by the expelled leader, Azad admitted that he had called up Singh "as a party colleague, in an attempt to make him see reason, but gave up when he appeared adamant".
"Nonetheless, he has tried to tarnish my reputation as well as that of our national president. Both of us are Dalits.
I will sue him for defamation and also under the SC/ST Act. I am seeking legal opinion," Azad told reporters.
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was enacted to prevent commission of atrocities against the members of SCs and STs. A person held guilty under the law is liable to be imprisoned for six months which may be extended up to a year.
Azad had unsuccessfully contested from Bochaha constituency in the assembly elections.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll climbs to 13; body of last missing person recovered
Jabalpur (PTI): The bodies of a five-year-old boy and his uncle were recovered from Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district on Sunday morning, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy to 13, police said.
The boat, around 20 years old and operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening.
"The bodies of Mayuram (5) and his uncle Kamraj (around 50), an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, were found floating and were fished out of the dam," Bargi Sub Divisional Officer of Police Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI over the phone.
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All 13 missing persons identified have now been accounted for, he said, adding the bodies were sent to a government hospital for postmortem.
Teams comprising around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, along with personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, were involved in the search operation, the police said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the vessel, 28 were rescued after the incident, according to the police.
The CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat, though the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far, they said.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members. It also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
