State govt has funds in SDRF for Wayanad rehabilitation: Centre to Kerala HC
Kochi, Nov 15: The Centre on Friday informed the Kerala High Court that money for Wayanad rehabilitation was available in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and information regarding allocation of any additional funds for it will be conveyed by the end of the month.
The submission from the central government came during the hearing of a plea initiated by the High Court for prevention and management of natural disasters in the state in the wake of the landslides that devastated three villages in Wayanad district of Kerala.
The state government on the other hand told the court that the Centre in a letter has said it will not allocate any more funds, than what has already been allocated, for the rehabilitation of the disaster victims.
It claimed that no positive assurance has been received from the Centre.
A bench of justices A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and K V Jayakumar, however, did not agree with the state's stand and questioned whether it was based on media reports.
The bench told the state government that the Centre has not said that it will not provide more assistance.
It said that while news reports may appear to indicate that nothing will be provided, if you look at the details, it does not seem so.
The state's contentions were based on news reports and the letter received from the Centre.
The Centre in a letter to the state had said that under the existing guidelines of SDRF and NDRF, there is no provision to declare any calamity a 'national disaster'.
The matter will be heard next on Friday, the court said.
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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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