Indonesia prison fire kills 41 drug inmates, injuring 39
Jakarta (AP): A massive fire raged through an overcrowded prison near Indonesia's capital early Wednesday, killing at least 41 inmates and injuring 39 others.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of fire that started at Block C of Tangerang prison on the outskirts of Jakarta designated for drug offenders, said Rika Aprianti, spokesperson for the corrections department at the Justice Ministry.
Hundreds of police and soldiers were deployed to take control of Tangerang prison, which was designed to house 1,225 inmates but has more than 2,000, Aprianti said. Block C was stuffed full of 122 convicts when the fire occurred.
She said the fire has been extinguished a few hours later and all victims have been evacuated to a hospital.
Jailbreaks and riots that led to fire are common in Indonesia, where overcrowding has become a problem in prisons that are struggling with poor funding and large numbers of people arrested in a war on illegal drugs
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Karnataka by-polls: Cong ahead in Bagalkot, BJP leads in Davanagere South
Bengaluru (PTI): Trends show Congress and BJP have maintained leads respectively in Karnataka's Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly seats, where counting of votes is underway on Monday, for the bypolls held for two seats on April 9.
The polls were necessitated by the deaths of senior Congress MLAs H Y Meti (Bagalkot) and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (Davanagere South).
According to the Election Commission, Congress party's Umesh Meti was ahead of BJP's Veerabhadrayya Charantimath by a margin of 9,969 votes in Bagalkot.
In Davanagere South, BJP's Srinivas T Dasakariyappa was leading over Congress party's Samarth Mallikarjun by a margin of 8,539 votes.
Nine and 25 candidates were in the fray, respectively in the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly segments.
