8 devotees killed after car falls into gorge in Himachal Shimla, March 2 (IANS): Eight devotees from Punjab were killed when a private vehicle skidded off the road and fell into a gorge on the Chandigarh-Manali national highway in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh on early Friday, police said. The devotees, belonging to Kale Ghanpur village near Amritsar town, were returning home after paying obeisance at a famous Sikh shrine at Manikaran in Kullu district when the accident occurred near Swarghat, about 120 km from the state capital. One person got grievous injuries and was admitted to a government hospital in Nalagarh. “Most of the dead belonged to close-knit families,” a police official told IANS. Eyewitnesses said the Innova vehicle was overcrowded and the driver probably lost control while negotiating a turn. Rescuers, mostly locals, had a tough time in extracting the victims from the vehicle, said an eyewitness. The Manikaran shrine, located in the Parvati Valley along the banks of the Parvati river, is some 50 km from the Kullu district headquarters and 250 km from state capital Shimla. It’s one of the busiest Sikh shrines in north India and frequented by the devotees, especially during festivals like Holi. 80 Tamil Nadu red sander woodcutters arrested in AP Tirupati, March 2 (PTI): The Andhra Pradesh Police on Friday arrested 80 suspected red sander woodcutters from Tamil Nadu at Anjaneyapuram, 15 km from here. The arrests were made at around 2 am when the accused were on their way to forests here in a lorry from Arcot in Tamil Nadu, Red Sanders anti-smuggling task forces sources told PTI. “Three of those arrested were college students,” they said. According to the sources, a team that was keeping vigil on the movements of the woodcutters alerted about the lorry en route to Seshachalam hill ranges in Andhra Pradesh. More details in the matter are awaited. On February 28, a PIL was filed in the Madras high court alleging that over 500 suspected woodcutters from Tamil Nadu had been “illegally detained” by the Andhra Pradesh police. The PIL requested the court to take an appropriate action against “erring officials” of that state. Advocate P Pugalenthi submitted that these persons had been “illegally detained” by police of that state without even the knowledge of the Tamil Nadu government. Tiger spotted in Bengal's Lalgarh forest Kolkata, March 2 (IANS): A Royal Bengal tiger was caught on a camera trap in Lalgarh forest in Bengal's West Midnapore district, a forest official said on Friday. "Following reports of catte kills from surrounding villages, we installed seven cameras in Lalgarh forest, a former Maoist area. We got a report this morning that a fully grown Royal Bengal tiger was captured by one of the cameras," said an officer of Midnapore Division Forest Office. "We found pug marks and suspected the tiger's presence after inspecting a killed cattle," he said, adding that earlier there was no report of the presence of the big cat in that forest. Efforts would be made to capture the tiger and send it to Sundarbans, he said. Responding to a query as to how the tiger could have come to the forest, the official said: "It is difficult to say. We are exploring all possibilities." It was expected that the tiger might have sneaked into the forest from Simlipal reserve in neighbouring Odisha. Another Kashmir militant returns home after mother’s appeal Jammu, March 2 (PTI): A boy who joined militancy in Kashmir has returned home on Friday following an appeal by his mother, a senior police official said. “Another young boy responding to the appeals of crying mother returned to the fold of family leaving path of violence in the valley”, DGP SP Vaid said in a tweet on Friday. The DGP also wished a happy reunion to the family in his tweet. “I wish the family happy re-union”, he said. The age of the boy has not been disclosed. Four Kashmiri youngsters, who had taken to militancy, shunned the path of violence and returned to the mainstream in 2017. Notably, last month, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, in a written reply to a question of BJP MLC Vikram Randhawa in the legislative council, said that four misguided youths shunned the path of violence and returned to the mainstream. “Efforts are being made to counsel the families of militants to convince their wards to give up violence”, she said. The chief minister said her government had taken a number of states to contain radicalisation and extremism, and undertaken youth engagement activities, such as cricket tournaments. Mufti said youth clubs had been set up at the police station level to train them in information technology and indoor games. Also, she mentioned about the surveillance on social media, which she said had been enhanced as the Internet plays a major role in radicalisation of the youth. Church sexton who killed Kerala priest nabbed Thiruvananthapuram, March 2 (IANS): The former church sexton who stabbed a 52-year-old Catholic priest to death on Thursday in Kerala's Ernakulam district was arrested from a forest on Friday afternoon, police said. Priest Xavier Thelekkat, a native of Kochi, was attached to the Angamaly diocese of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and was the rector of the Kuruishmala Church. He was attacked and killed by his former sexton, Jomy, an officer of the church who looked after the maintenance of its buildings and the graveyard. On Thursday, when the priest was coming down the hill as part of the Kuruishmala pilgrimage, Jomy stabbed the priest several times and fled to the forest. The police with the help of locals had launched a search into the forest and on Friday afternoon, a visibly tired Jomy was spotted in the forests. He was taken into the police custody. The accused will be interrogated and produced before a magistrate on Friday or Saturday. According to sources, Thelekat had fired Jomy three months ago. Jomy had approached Thelekat a few times thereafter, requesting to be reinstated. However, the priest was not keen to take him back.
