Bus plunges into pond, 56 drown

Bhopal: As many as 56 passengers of a bus, including 15 children, were feared drowned after the vehicle plunged into a pond in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.

The driver of the Rewa-bound bus from Hinoti lost control of the vehicle when its steering arm broke at a sharp turn in Govindgarh, police said. The bus plunged into the pond after crashing against a mud structure.

The badly patched and potholed road, too, contributed to the accident.

Nine persons managed to swim to safety.

For six hours after the accident — when some lives could have been saved — the Rewa district administration struggled to find divers.

On October 2, over one hundred pilgrims were washed away following the release of 9,000 cusecs of water from a dam in Sindh river. They were crossing the river to offer prayers at the Ratangarh Mata temple.

Boy killed, servant arrested

New Delhi (PTI): A four-year-old boy was killed and two of his elder sisters were injured when their servant allegedly attacked them with a knife in north Delhi on Thursday.

Sanjay had stabbed Pratham Aggarwal and his sisters Prerna and Akriti, aged 13 and nine, when their parents were in another room, police said.

The girls have been admitted to hospital in a critical condition.

The police said robbery was not the motive behind the attack as nothing was found missing from the house and suspect it was a result of resistance by the girls to a molestation attempt.

The servant, who went missing after the incident, has been arrested from Rishikesh.

Maoists killed

Hyderabad: Four Maoists were blown to pieces when a pressure bomb exploded in their hut in a village in Warangal district on Thursday morning.

Police identified three of them as Ramakanth, Kumar alias Kiran and Sadanand. In Nallamala, two rebels had died six months ago.

Navy leak case

New Delhi: The CBI has charged Abhishek Verma, son of a former Congress MP, in the navy war room leak case for conspiring to obtain documents that compromised the country’s sovereignty.

Srividya dead

Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Actress Srividya, who starred in several films in Malayalam and other south Indian languages, died here on Thursday. She was 53 and was being treated for cancer. Srividya was the daughter of classical musician M.L. Vasanthakumari.

Farmers in Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, have said they will observe “black Diwali” in protest against the BJP-led government’s indifference towards their demand for water.