Chess wizard grabs Grandmaster norm

bhubaneswar: Chess wizard Debashish Das arrived at the city airport on Wednesday after bagging his second Grandmaster norm at the Open Grand Master Chess Tournament in Dubai. e won in a draw against Surya Shekhar Ganguly from Bengal in the ninth round. Fifty players across the globe took part in the event. He had won his first Grandmaster norm last year at the World Junior Chess Championship in Greece.

Honour

Bhubaneswar: Jagannath temple authorities will give an umbrella made of palm leaves to President Pranab Mukherjee during his visit to the 12th Century shrine on April 24.

Kidnap claim

BHUBANESWAR: Police arrested three persons on charges of kidnapping an employee of a real estate firm in Nayapalli on Tuesday evening. former driver of the firm and three others allegedly kidnapped the manager, Bhaktabandhu Mohanty, and demanded Rs 2.50 lakh as ransom. The victim claimed to have escaped near Panikoili and informed the police. However, police found the statement to be suspicious as he said the abductors intercepted him in a passenger bus. The driver is at large.

Strike threat

Balasore: A 31-year-old woman, who had lodged an FIR against her in-laws last month alleging dowry torture, has threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike outside the superintendent of police’s office from Monday if the police did not arrest the persons she had named. Santoshini Mallick, who married in 2001, alleged she was driven out of her house in 2010 for not being able to bring Rs 80,000 as dowry and her two daughters were taken away from her.

Jumbo kills

Berhampur: Forest officials on Wednesday recovered the body of a 35-year-old woman, who was trampled to death by a wild elephant near Dimbiripalli village in North Ghumusar forest division the previous day. The jumbo had sparked panic in the locality over the past few days. Local divisional forest officer Krushna Chandra Mishra said the victim, Karpura Muli, and her 70-year-old father were going to the forest to collect firewood when the elephant attacked them.

Girls drown

Angul: Two girls on Wednesday drowned in their village pond in Jarapara police limits. Sujata Naik, 11, a Class VI student, and Tapaswani Nayak, 12, a Class VII student, had gone to bathe in the pond when they were swept away. Another girl, who was on the banks, raised an alarm but by the time villagers gathered and admitted them to Angul hospital, the duo had died. Cases of unnatural death have been registered and their bodies have been sent for post-mortem.