Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee died at a hospital in Kolkata on Monday morning following multiple organ failure. He was 89 years old. “Yesterday, he suffered a heart attack and was put on a ventilator. He passed away at 8.15 am today due to multiple organ failure,” said Pradip Tandon, CEO of Belle Vue Clinic. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who visited the hospital announced that he would be given full state honours. “He was a great leader and this is a personal loss for me. His body will be taken to the Calcutta High Court and then to the state assembly, where we will give him the highest respect with a gun salute. After that, it will be taken to his house, and then to SSKM College and Hospital as he had donated his body,” she announced. Chatterjee’s daughter, Anushila Basu, said the CPI(M) wanted to take his body to the party headquarters at Alimuddin Street, but they refused to allow it. The CPI(M) had expelled Chatterjee from the party in 2008 for refusing to resign as Speaker after it withdrew support to the UPA-I government.
Indian national released from Pak jail after 36 years
Indian national Gajanand Sharma, who was imprisoned at central jail in Lahore for the last 36 years, has been released by Pakistan. A resident of Jaipur, he had strayed into the neighbouring country when he was only 32. Reports said Gajanand was initially sentenced for a shorter period, but due to a lack of consular access, he was in jail for 36 years. Pakistan, as part of a humanitarian gesture, also released 30 Indian prisoners, including 27 fishermen at Punjab's Attari-Wagah border. For most of the three decades that he spent in Pak, his family remained clueless about his whereabouts after he went missing in 1982. Jaipur MP Bohra said that Sharma had been sentenced to two months incarceration, but due to lack of consular access, he continued to remain in jail. It was only in May, following an inquiry via the External Affairs Ministry, that Jaipur police contacted his family and submitted documents attesting his identity that he was released.
43 injured in fire, blast at BPL refinery in Mumbai
Forty-three people sustained injuries, some of them seriously, in a major fire followed by a boiler blast at a hydrocracker unit of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited’s (BPCL) refinery in Mumbai last week. The impact of the blast was so powerful that windowpanes of some buildings in the vicinity were damaged, and it was heard at some places as far as 6 km from the refinery. Of the injured, 22 were discharged after preliminary treatment at the BPCL’s first-aid centre, and the others were admitted in Sushrut Hospital, Chembur. A police official said “Those injured have fractures and laceration wounds.” In a statement, the BPCL said, the Refinery Fire-fighting team along with Mutual Aid group, which includes the fire brigade, immediately controlled and contained the fire. . During the incident some people suffered minor injuries and were sent to local hospital at Chembur for further treatment.”
