Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has announced cash compensations of Rs 2 lakhs each to the families of 24 Hindu pilgrims who were killed after the truck ferrying them plunged into a gorge at Dabrani in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand Sunday morning.
“All the victims were Shiva devotees from Baghanki and Khedki villages situated along the KMP Highway. They were all young men in their teens of early 20s,” an official of the Gurgaon district administration told this newspaper.
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3 elephants electrocuted in Orissa
Akshaya Kumar Sahoo
Bhubaneswar
Three elephants, including two tuskers, on Sunday died of electrocution at Durlabhpur under Telkoi subdivision in the mineral rich Keonjhar district, nearly 300 km from here. The accidents occurred when the pachyderms came in contact with 11-KV live wires that were precariously hanging much below the prescribed height, said eyewitnesses. The elephants, believed to be in the age group of 45 to 50, were crossing the Telkoi-Bimla road near Nigamananda ashram in search of food.
Senior divisional forest officer, Mr Sarat Kumar Monahty, held power distribution company Nesco responsible for the death.