Uttar Pradesh: 12 killed, 24 injured as tractor-trolley falls off bridge in Shahjahanpur
Shahjahanpur (UP) (PTI): Twelve people, including eight children, were killed when the tractor-trolley in which they were travelling fell off a bridge here on Saturday, police said.
Twenty-four people were also injured in the accident which took place near Birsinghpur village on the Tilhar-Nigohi road. The passengers from Ajmatpur village were on their way to fetch water from the Garra river for a 'Bhagwat Katha', they said.
Teams of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were rushed to the spot to conduct rescue and relief operations.
Twelve people, including eight children and three women, were killed in the accident, Superintendent of Police (SP) S Anand said.
Twenty-four people were injured in the accident. Twenty-one of them, including seven with serious injuries, are undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College, said Chief Medical Superintendent Shailendra Kumar.
The remaining three are admitted to the Tilhar primary health centre, officials said.
The people travelling in the tractor-trolley were going to fetch water from the Garra river for a 'Bhagwat Katha'. The tractor-trolley fell from the bridge to the river bank near Birsinghpur village on the Tilhar-Nigohi road, Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Sanjeev Bajpai told PTI.
Top officials, including SP Anand, rushed to the spot to oversee rescue operations. The bodies were sent for post-mortem examination, the officials said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed sorrow over the loss of lives in the accident and extended condolences to the bereaved families, his office said in a tweet in Hindi.
He directed the district administration to ensure proper treatment of the injured, the Chief Minister's Office said.
An official spokesperson in Lucknow said instructions have been issued to immediately provide financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh to the kin of each of the deceased and Rs 50,000 to those seriously injured.
On the instructions of the chief minister, SDRF and NDRF teams and district administration officials rushed to the spot for rescue and relief work, the spokesperson said.
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Dalit outfits call state-wide hartal over dental student’s death
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Various Dalit organisations on Monday announced a state-wide hartal seeking justice in the death of Kannur Dental College student Nithin Raj.
The hartal will be observed on Tuesday from 6 am to 6 pm.
As many as 52 Dalit organisations, including Justice for Nithin Raj Action Council, have announced the strike.
Organisations requesting cooperation for the strike said that no vehicles will be forcibly stopped and that all essential services are exempted.
Raj, a first-year BDS student at a private dental college in Anjarakkandy in Kannur district, was found critically injured after falling from a building on April 10 and later succumbed to his injuries.
Police have registered a case against two faculty members on charges of abetment of suicide and under provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, following allegations by the student’s family that he was subjected to caste- and complexion-based harassment.
Kerala Pinnokka Samudaya Munnani (KPSM), one of the organisations supporting the hartal, alleged in a statement that police had shown apathy in the investigation and were attempting to protect the accused in the case.
KPSM state president K V Padmanabhan and general secretary S Anwar alleged that the probe into Raj’s death was being deliberately misdirected and delayed.
While the family has firmly alleged that caste discrimination and mental harassment by faculty members led to the student’s death, police were attempting to divert the investigation towards loan app borrowings, they claimed.
The organisation alleged that this was a planned move to shield the real accused.
KPSM further alleged that by deliberately delaying the arrest of the accused teachers, police enabled them to secure anticipatory bail.
They said there was no confidence in the present police investigation and demanded that the case be handed over to an independent agency at the earliest.
