Father of UP gang-rape victim kills self
Hamirpur (UP), March 7: A week after two girls were found hanging from a tree in a field after they were allegedly gang-raped, the father of one of the victims was also found dead here, police said on Thursday. Superintendent of Police (SP) Deeksha Sharma said, “The body of a 45-year-old man, resident of a village under the Sisolar police station area, was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday under unknown circumstances.” Hamirpur police are yet to register an FIR regarding the alleged suicide. The deceased is the father of one of the girls who were found hanging in a village in Kanpur district on February 28. The victims and accused hailed from the same village in adjoining Hamirpur district, the police said. According to the deceased father’s kin, he died allegedly by suicide as the accused’s family members were threatening them to compromise on the rape case. (PTI)
4-year-old girl killed in fire at govt school
Bijapur (Chhattisgarh), March 7: A four-year-old girl was killed after a major fire broke out in a government-run residential school in Chhattisgarh’s tribal-dominated Bijapur district in the wee hours of Thursday, officials said. The deceased was not a student of the school. She was staying with her relative, who is a student of class 8 in the school, they said. The blaze erupted, apparently due to a short-circuit, at around 1 am at the porta cabin (prefabricated portable structure) school for girls in Chintakonta village under Awapalli police station limits, Bijapur Collector Anurag Pandey said. Visuals of the spot showed the porta cabin structure was completely gutted. Porta cabins are used for setting up school infrastructure in some of the Naxal-affected areas of the state. The residential school has three blocks which were set up using bamboo. The fire rapidly spread in all the blocks and the structures were gutted, he said. (PTI)