RAHUL KICKS OFF T’GANA CAMPAIGN
: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday vowed to build a new Telangana that would reflect the aspirations of all sections of people, if his party is voted to power in the assembly elections. Addressing rallies, Rahul accused TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao of miserably failing the people. “...The people of Telangana had a dream of a new government in the new state that would supply water to the parched lands, generate wealth... and provide employment opportunities... But what they had witnessed... was a disastrous performance of the govt.”
HYDERABAD
The railways was not informed about the Dussehra event along the tracks in Amritsar and the civic body did not give its permission either, officials from the two organisations said on Saturday, a day after 61 revellers were mowed down by a train while Ravana’s effigy went up in flames in a loud burst of firecrackers.
Grief, shock and outrage swirled in the air as families, officials and others tried to piece together the sequence of events of the festivities, which went horribly wrong when a train from Jalandhar came hurtling down the tracks where scores of people were standing to get a better view of the spectacle.
Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, who visited Joda Phatak — the site of the tragedy, and hospitals, announced a magisterial probe and said 59 people
AMRITSAR:
were killed and 57 injured.
Officials earlier said 61 people were killed at the event, barely 50 metres from the railway track. Except nine, most of the bodies have been identified, Singh told reporters. Most of those killed are migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
An FIR was lodged against unknown persons, officials said, as locals asserted that the effigyburning had been going on at the spot for at least 20 years. Amritsar Municipal Corporation maintained that no permission