New Delhi: All 38 Indians in Sri Lanka’s Welikada prison are safe and some had sustained minor injuries in the wake of a prison riot in which 27 people were killed. The Indian high commission in Colombo was arranging delivery of food packets to the prisoners to mark Diwali today, an official source said.
The high commission yesterday secured access to the Indian prisoners and met all 38, the source said. “All are safe. Some of them had minor medical complaints that are being attended to.
“Considering the harrowing experience they have gone through, the high commission is arranging delivery of food for them tomorrow (Diwali),” the official said. Hundreds of prisoners in Colombo’s Welikada prison apparently revolted on Friday after a crackdown on illegal drugs and mobile telephones, leading to violence that left at least 27 of them dead. Most Indians in the prison are from Tamil Nadu and Kerala. As the violence raged, they sent desperate messages claiming their lives were in danger.
Trinamool leader
held with firearm
Kolkata: A Trinamool Congress district leader, accused of threatening officials in a private hospital in West Bengal’s Birbhum district with a firearm, was yesterday arrested and remanded to police custody, police said. The incident came to light after the closed circuit television footage of the private hospital - which was aired on television channels - showed Ashish Dey beating up and brandishing a firearm to threaten the hospital officials at Suri. Dey surrendered at the Suri police station yesterday and later a court remanded him to police custody for five days, police said. Dey, however, claimed he was framed. “It’s a cooked up case. The CCTV footage has been tampered with.” Trinamool MP from Birbhum Satabdi Roy said Dey had been expelled from the party earlier. But local television channels showed him on stage alongside former railway minister Mukul Roy and current state Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee at separate programmes.
Winter aid for elderly in Odisha
Bhubaneswar: Odisha yesterday announced financial assistance for its elderly, widows and disabled people to enable them to buy winter clothes as the mercury started dropping in some parts of the state.
The beneficiaries would receive `200 each on December 15 along with their monthly pension, according to an official statement issued by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s office. The aid would cost the state exchequer `340m and would benefit about 27 lakh elderly people, six lakh widows and four lakh physically challenged people, it said. Agencies
