Delhi colleges receive bomb threat e-mails
New Delhi, May 23: Over a dozen colleges including Delhi University’s prestigious Lady Sri Ram College, Hansraj College and Ramjas College received bomb threat e-mails on Thursday, officials said, a day after a similar threat sent alarm bells ringing in the North Block. A Delhi Fire Service (DFS) official said they first received a call at 4.38 pm about the bomb threat at the LSR College and two fire tenders were pressed into service. Later, other colleges also made the call to authorities. The local police, a bomb disposal squad, a bomb detection team arrived at the LSR College along with a dog squad and conducted searches but nothing suspicious was found yet, the official said. LSR Principal Suman Sharma told PTI the entire campus has been sanitised. (PTI)
Four labourers buried alive while digging well
Lohardaga, May 23: At least four labourers, including a woman, were buried alive while digging a well in Jharkhand’s Lohardaga district on Thursday, police said. The incident took place around 11 am in Chitri Ambatoli village in Senha police station area, around 80 km from state capital Ranchi, when the workers were digging a well under an MGNREGA project, a senior officer said. The police conducted a rescue operation but all the four labourers were found dead, he said. (PTI)
8 dead, over 60 injured in chemical factory in Thane
Thane, May 23: As many as eight persons were killed and more than 60 others injured following an explosion at a chemical factory in Maharashtra’s Thane district on Thursday, officials said. As a boiler exploded at Amudan Chemicals located in Phase 2 of Dombivli MIDC area around 1.40 pm, the impact of the explosion and the resultant blaze affected adjacent factories and houses, they said. The affected chemical factory produced food colours and uses peroxides that are highly reactive and unstable chemicals that can cause violent explosions under certain conditions, the NDRF said. The blast was so loud that it was heard a kilometre away, an eyewitness said. (PTI)
7 Naxalites killed in encounter
Narayanpur, May 23: Seven Naxalites were killed in an encounter with security personnel in a forest along Narayanpur-Bijapur inter-district border in Chhattisgarh on Thursday, police said. The gunfight broke out around 11 am when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxal operation and the intermittent firing was still underway, Narayanpur SP Prabhat Kumar said. Seven Naxalites in “Maoist uniform” have been gunned down in the exchange of fire so far, said the SP. The operation, involving personnel belonging to the District Reserve Guard from Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bastar districts, Bastar Fighters and Special Task Force – all units of state police – was launched based on inputs about the presence of cadres from Maoists’ Indravati Area Committee and Platoon No. 16, he said. Altogether seven firearms have been recovered from the encounter site, he said. The operation is still underway and further details were awaited, he added. (PTI)