Shillong, Apr 17: Promising Indian table tennis player Vishwa Deenadayalan of Tamil Nadu, who was on his way to Shillong to participate in the 83rd Senior National and Inter-State Championships, died in a road accident on Sunday.

Deenadayalan was 18.

He was travelling in a car along with his three teammates from Guwahati to Shillong when a 12-wheel trailer, coming from the opposite direction, ploughed through the road divider and hit the vehicle at Shangbangla and plunged into the gorge.

According to a release issued by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), the driver died on the spot, while Deenadayalan was declared brought dead by the doctors of Nongpoh Civil Hospital.

His teammates -- Ramesh Santosh Kumar, Abinash Prasannaji Srinivasan and Kishore Kumar -- suffered severe injuries but are currently stable.

The organisers of the championships had rushed them to the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong for critical care.

"The team of doctors attending to them said the boys were stable," the release said.

Deenadayalan's father and two of his family members will be arriving in Guwahati tonight and his embalmed body will be flown to Chennai on Monday morning.

Deenadayalan, a promising player with several national ranking titles and international medals to his credit, was to represent India at the WTT Youth Contender at Linz, Austria, from April 27.

A product of Krishnaswamy TT Club in Anna Nagar, he had come in for praise from none other than Sharath Kamal.

Deenadayalan's transition from cadet and sub-junior to junior section was steady. He had won the cadet and sub-junior national titles also.

The B.Com student of Loyola College won the Under-19 Boys title during the Dehra Dun National Ranking Tournament this January.

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Jammu, May 12 (PTI): Security forces are engaging suspected drones observed along the International Border in Samba district of Jammu region on Monday, an Army said.

This fresh incident of drone activity along the borderline comes barely hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first address to the nation following Operation Sindoor and the meeting of the DGMOs of India and Pakistan.

The Army, however, said there is no need to be alarmed.

“A small number of suspected drones have been observed near Samba in J&K. They are being engaged,” it said.

In the backdrop of the situation, several areas witnessed blackouts in Samba, Kathua, Rajouri, and Jammu.

Lights were switched off at the cave shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi and along its track as a precautionary measure, sources said.

On Monday, talks between the DGMOs were held during which issues related to the continuing commitment that both sides must not fire a single shot or initiate any aggressive or inimical action against each other were discussed, the Indian Army said.

It was also agreed that both sides would consider immediate measures to ensure troop reduction along the borders and in forward areas, it added.

The situation remained largely peaceful across Jammu and Kashmir, with no incidents of ceasefire violation reported along the Indo-Pak border Sunday overnight — marking the first calm night after 18 days of hostilities following the Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 people — mostly tourists — dead.

India and Pakistan on Saturday reached an understanding to cease all firing and military actions on land, air, and sea with immediate effect, following four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes that brought the two countries to the brink of full-scale war.

Eighteen days of intense hostilities following the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war, ended with a ceasefire that restored calm along the Line of Control, the International Border, and the hinterland in Jammu and Kashmir. The Army thwarted Pakistan’s Hamas-style kamikaze drone attacks during the escalation.

Since the night of April 24, hours after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, Pakistani troops repeatedly targeted Indian positions along the LoC — beginning in the Kashmir Valley and quickly expanding to the Jammu region.

The latest hostilities began in the northern districts of Kupwara and Baramulla in the Kashmir Valley, before spreading southwards to Rajouri, Poonch, Akhnoor, and the Pargwal sector along the International Border in Jammu district. The firing affected five border districts — Baramulla, Kupwara, Poonch, Rajouri, and Jammu.

The recent round of cross-border firing further undermined the ceasefire agreement reached in February 2021, which has largely been seen as ineffective due to Pakistan’s frequent violations along the 740-km-long LoC.

The April 22 terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 people — mostly tourists — in Pahalgam’s Baisaran valley, triggered a strong response from the central government.

The India-Pakistan border stretches over 3,300 kilometers, divided into three segments: the International Border (IB), spanning about 2,400 km from Gujarat to Akhnoor in Jammu; the 740-km-long Line of Control (LoC) that divides Jammu and Kashmir; and the 110-km-long Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), which separates the Siachen Glacier region.