India test-fires advance Agni missile with multi-payloads
NEW DELHI, May 9: India has successfully test-fired an Advanced Agni missile with the strategic ability to deploy multiple payloads to separate targets simultaneously — a milestone that places the country among a select league of global powers.The testing of the missile with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) system was carried out from Odisha’s APJ Abdul Kalam Island on Friday, according to the defence ministry.The MIRV feature ensures that a single missile can deploy multiple war heads at different locations simultaneously.While the ministry said the flight test of an advanced Agni missile with MIRV was carried out, authoritative sources said it was an Agni-5 missile and the trial was conducted to check the MIRV technology under ‘Mission Divyastra’ .The maiden trial of the Agni-5 with MIRV was carried out in March last year.“India conducted the successful flight-trial of an advanced Agni missile with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle system from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha on May 8,” the defence ministry said.“The missile was flight-tested with multiple payloads, targeted to different targets spatially distributed over a large geographical area in the Indian Ocean Region,” it said. (PTI)
Man travelling to surprise pregnant wife charred to death in car accident
VADODARA,May 9: A 30-year-old man died after his car caught fire following an accident on the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway in Gujarat’s Vadodara district on Saturday.Sameerkumar Panchal was travelling to Navsari to surprise his pregnant wife when the accident occurred around 9:30 AM.“Panchal’s sedan rammed into a divider before catching fire. He was unable to escape and was charred to death inside the car. Fire brigade personnel and local police rushed to the spot and recovered the charred remains of the victim,”a police official said. (PTI)
34 years on, Gujarat police crack woman’s murder
AHMEDABAD, May 9: Thirty-four years after a woman was allegedly murdered and buried, the Gujarat police have arrested two brothers following the exhumation of skeletal remains from a house in Ahmedabad on Saturday.The crime branch nabbed the accused, Shamshuddin Khedawala (61) and his brother Iqbal (63), in connection with a 1992 murder case, after DNA from the exhumed bones matched with siblings of the victim, Farzana Doshu Radhanpuri, he said.The victim was Shamshuddin’s wife, and the latter had allegedly killed her with the help of his brother and two others. They then buried the body in the pit in the veranda of a house in Qutub Nagar in the Vatva area, the official said.Acting on a tip-off, the police dug at the site to recover a jawbone and teeth, which were subsequently analysed. Shamshuddin, along with his brother Iqbal, his friend Abdul, and Shaliyabib, allegedly killed Farzana and buried the body in a pit in the veranda and sealed it.Police traced the victim’s family to Dholka taluka, where her brother, revealed she had been missing for 35 years. (PTI)
