India police raid targets broadcaster over ‘fraud’

22 die in N. India bus crash

NEW DELHI, June 5, (AFP): India’s federal police were accused Monday of running a “witch-hunt” against a news broadcaster after launching raids and pursuing the network’s co-founder over allegations of defrauding a bank.

Police named NDTV cofounder Prannoy Roy, his wife Radhika and a private company linked to NDTV as among those responsible for the “alleged losses of 480 million rupees ($7.45 million) to a bank”, said R.K. Gaur, spokesman for the federal Central Bureau of Investigation.

A criminal case has been registered against the pair while federal agents raided properties in New Delhi and Dehradun, a hill town in northern India, in relation to their investigation, Gaur added without providing further details.

The broadcaster rallied behind its embattled boss, dismissing the raids as “concerted harassment of NDTV and its promoters based on same old, endless false accusations”.

Roy

22 die in bus crash:

At least 22 people died when they became trapped in a bus that caught fire after it collided with a truck in northern India on Monday.

Police said the doors of the government-run bus jammed in the collision, trapping the passengers insiders as it caught fire after the fuel tank burst.

Some passengers were able to escape by breaking the windows, but police found 22 charred bodies inside the bus once the blaze was finally extinguished.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the accident in Bareilly, a town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

“The case is under investigation and the cause of the accident and subsequent burning of the bus will be looked into,” Bareilly traffic police chief Om Prakash Yadav told AFP.

Indian troops

kill 4:

Indian paramilitary forces killed four suspected suicide attackers who tried to storm their camp in the disputed Kashmir region early Monday.

The gunmen lobbed grenades and fired automatic weapons outside the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Indian-administered Kashmir before dawn, a spokesman said.

“They tried to storm the camp but they were not even allowed to enter the gate,” CRPF spokesman Bhuvesh Choudhary told AFP.

Choudhary described the men as “heavily armed fidayeen”, a term commonly used to mean suicide attacker in Kashmir.

Lanka hails military:

Sri Lanka’s military recorded its biggest peacetime deployment for search and rescue operations after monsoon rains triggered landslides and floods that killed 213 people, the government said Monday.

Nearly 10,000 troops and paramilitary forces reinforced tens of thousands of police in the relief effort following the May 26 deluge, Disaster Management minister Anura Yapa said.

“This is the biggest deployment of troops during peace time in Sri Lanka,” the minister told reporters in Colombo.