Prashant Pandey

The police said, prima facie, it appears the children were killed by the elders before taking their own lives.

Earlier, Sinha had garlanded and offered sweets to six of the convicts released on bail by the Jharkhand High Court during the pendency of their appeal on July 4.

Acquitting the duo, the court said there was “not any iota of evidence against the children to connect them from any angle to the crime”.

While Mascarenhas condemned the action of woman staff member Anima Indwar, he was confident that Sister Concilia, who too was arrested in the case, had no role and that her statement was recorded in "duress."

Amit Shah told the gathering that “samvad (dialogue)” had become necessary because opposition parties are creating confusion among people from tribal communities, according to party leaders.

On July 4, when seven of the 11 men convicted of the 2017 lynching of Jharkhand meat trader Alimuddin Ansari walked out on bail, six of them were taken straight to Sinha’s residence in Hazaribagh, where the minister welcomed them.

In Jharkhand’s Khunti, a gangrape and a subsequent stand-off have sharpened the mutual mistrust between tribals and the State. As villages in these parts assert their identity through the Pathalgadi movement, The Indian Express looks at the circumstances that turned a centuries-old tradition into an act of tribal assertion.

According to CWC officials, Indwar had admitted in writing that she sold two more children to couples in Morabadi and Kanta Toli in Ranchi for Rs 50,000 each, said officials. Indwar also said she had done it with the help of Sister Concelia, the officials said. 

On June 19, Patthalgarhi supporters allegedly abducted five women from a school in Kochang village of Khunti where they went to perform a play and gangraped them.

According to sources, the police guards were kept in a school in a village, Butigada, nearly 15-20 kilometres from Khunti headquarters. When the police applied pressure, the Patthalgarhi supporters reportedly released them.

According to police, Pattalgarhi supporters had abducted three policemen posted as security guards at the BJP MP’s house. They were abducted three days after police announced the arrest of two men accused of gangraping five women in Kochang village on June 19.

This is the first big attack by Maoists in Jharkhand after January 27, 2016, when seven police personnel were killed in Palamu district.

The three men arrested Saturday were produced in court Saturday and sent to judicial custody after their statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) were recorded before a magistrate.

According to police, a bike going from Ramgarh to Rajrappa was hit by an SUV around 8 am at Naya Mor, near Chitarpur village.

In September last year, 14-year-old Santoshi died of alleged starvation in Jharkhand. As the state counters claims of a similar death, and announces grain banks, revisiting Karimati

Murtaza Ansari (25) and Chiraguddin alias Charku Ansari (42) were caught by villagers for allegedly stealing buffaloes and beaten to death in Bankatti village.

All the accused have been sent to jail. The case was registered on the basis of a complaint by Imran Ansari, son of Charku. The police have also booked the two victims for allegedly stealing cattle.

DIG (Dumka) Akhilesh Kumar Jha said four people have been arrested for their prima facie involvement in the incident. The victims had allegedly stolen the buffaloes from a village and were sneaking out when they were caught.

While half-a-dozen deaths since October 2017 have been attributed to starvation, Roy said that barring the case of Santoshi Kumari of Simdega district in October last year, no genuine case of an eligible candidate being deprived of ration has come to notice.