Bhubaneswar : A five-year-old girl was raped by two minor boys in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district, police said on Thursday.

The boys have been detained following the incident that took place on Wednesday.

According to the FIR filed by the mother, the accused aged 11 and 14 raped her daughter on the premises of their school.

The victim studying in Class 1 was lured by the accused on the pretext of offering her soft drinks, according to the FIR.

"We have conducted the medical examination of the accused and the victim. Necessary action will be taken after receiving the medical examination report," said Sujogya Mishra, Jagatsinghpur Sub-Divisional Police Officer.

Thane : A couple from Ambernath in the district was killed when a water tanker hit their motorcycle, the police said on Thursday.

The police, however, registered a case under IPC sections for murder and criminal conspiracy against four people, including the tanker driver, as they suspect that the incident was the fallout of a property dispute between the couple and the accused.
The tanker driver was arrested in the wee hours today, Hill Line police station inspector G H Palange said.

The couple - Vasudeo Balue Shendre (50) and his wife Rekha Shendre (40) - was going towards Balegaon on the two-wheeler last evening when a water tanker hit their vehicle from the rear end at Narhen village, killing both of them on the spot, he said.
The police registered a case against the tanker driver and three other people, all residents of Ambernath, and launched a search for them, Palange said.

The police suspect that the couple was killed over a land dispute between them and the accused, he added.

Ludhiana : A gas cylinder exploded in a labour colony in Giaspura area here on Thursday morning, injuring 29 persons, five of whom were stated to be critical.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Dharmpal and SDM (East) Amarjit Singh Bains told reporters that the cylinder explosion took place in a house belonging to a man identified as Ashok Kumar in Smart Colony.

The gas cylinder caught fire. As Ashok, his wife and some neighbours tried to put out the flames, the cylinder exploded causing injuries to those who had gathered around the spot.

A portion of the building also collapsed.

Sub-Divisional Magistrate Bains said the injured included Ashok, his wife and a few women and children.

He said the injured have been rushed to nearby hospitals.

Smart Colony is home to migrant labourers.

The name of the injured are Yaswant Singh, Shashi Singh, Gobind, Ramnaresh, Pooja Yadav,  Sunita, Ashok Yadav, Surinder, Raj, Kajal, Kamlesh, Bittu  Rajan, Uttam,  Amit, Rakesh Kumar,  Dharminder,  Anjun Devi,  Varinder,  Amarnath,  Shivam,  Mamta, Shiv Sharma, Aeganiya Yadav, Meena Devi, Parmod Parsad, Mahommad Ali, Pawan Kumar and Prince Kumar. 

New Delhi : Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday named senior leader Kamal Nath as the new chief of party’s Madhya Pradesh unit also appointing Jyotiraditya Scindia as the state campaign committee president.
Madhya Pradesh goes to polls at the end of this year and the organisational change was long due.

Gandhi has also named four working presidents for the state to look after four different zones and cover the state geographically. Gandhi has been appointing working presidents in larger states to ensure booth management, a weak spot for the Congress.

Kamal Nath’s appointment in MP means he will step down as AICC general secretary in charge of Haryana where a reshuffle would then become necessary.

In Madhya Pradesh, Nath, the seniormost Congress MP in Lok Sabha, is seen as the best bet to reinvigorate party cadres ahead of the crucial assembly election. The BJP has held power in MP for three terms consecutively and is again making a bid.
The Congress has long suffered infighting in the state with three poles of power--Nath, Scindia and former CM Digvijay Singh.

It’s only now that the Congress has managed to reconcile factional differences with Gandhi conveying to leaders that their wars would not help the Congress reclaim MP.
Nath had been interested in a Madhya Pradesh role for years and never quite got a handle in Haryana where the party organisation suffered because of the differences between state chief Ashok Tanwar and former CM Bhupinder Hooda.

All eyes are on Haryana where there are many claimants to the state chief’s post, including Hooda, Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi.

Chandigarh : A day after counsel for the state police chief accused him of contempt by calling meeting of high ranking officials, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday remarked that it was his job to ensure discipline.

On Monday, the state DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyay counsel Anupam Gupta had told the High Court that the Chief Minister was in contempt of court for having called a disciplinary meeting of all high ranking officers with regards to the legal issue before the court.

Interacting with reporters after visiting the offices of the newly appointed minister, the Chief Minister remarked that anyone questioning the hierarchy was actually questioning the system.

He said he had not interfered in any way in the matter before the court, but, only given directions to his police officers in the interest of the state.

He said: “This is my instruction to the officers. My duty is to ensure discipline is maintained. Whether they go to high court or not is their business, but within service whether it’s like Para Military or Army there is a hierarchal system. You have to listen to the man at the top whosoever is head, is your boss, and that is how it should be. Anybody questioning that is breaking the system.’’