Kolkata: A woman was arrested yesterday after she flung her year-old daughter out of a running train in West Bengal’s North 24-Parganas district. The baby battles for life in a hospital, police said. The incident occurred yesterday near Naihati railway station, some 40km from here. The woman, Purnima Das, boarded a suburban train at Naihati. As the train pulled out of the station, she flung her baby out. Shocked co-passengers pulled the chain to stop the train, and handed the woman over to police. The woman claimed that her husband’s family had been torturing her ever since she gave birth to a girl, and she wanted to rid herself of her daughter. “Ever since I gave birth to a girl, my in-laws have been mentally and physically torturing me,” Das told police after her arrest.
Pakistan envoy positive on ties
NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s outgoing envoy to New Delhi said yesterday that he saw “light at the end of the tunnel” in diplomatic relations and predicted the improvement would survive next year’s Indian elections. High Commissioner (ambassador) Salman Bashir said calm had returned to the neighbours’ de facto border in Kashmir after a deadly flare-up earlier in the year and both sides were committed to improving ties. “I do not want to sound over-optimistic or exaggerate but what I am saying is that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Bashir told a farewell press conference here. “We have constantly worked for the improvement in relations between the two countries and at this point of time I am personally optimistic that we will be on the upward trajectory in the coming months.”
Shiv Sena MP Rawale sacked
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena yesterday sacked senior leader Mohan Rawale, at five terms its longest serving Lok Sabha MP, for dissidence, a party spokesperson said. The expulsion was ordered shortly after Rawale addressed a press conference in which he launched a no-holds-barred attack on the party leadership and alleged that the Shiv Sena was becoming “a party of touts”. The developments came just four days after a stern Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray made it clear that all those who did not like his leadership were “free to leave the party”. Rawale was elected as the party MP in 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004 from Mumbai.
Mars craft crosses moon orbit
Bangalore: The Indian spacecraft to Mars crossed the moon’s orbit yesterday on its way towards the red planet, ISRO officials said. Cruising at 32km per second in the 680m km solar orbit, the Orbiter flew over the satellite, crossing its orbit where India’s moon craft Chandrayaan-1 orbited in 2008-09.
Agencies
