Maharashtra: Three killed, five injured in truck accident in Pune

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At least three persons were killed and five others injured after a truck mowed down a group of people in Maharashtra's Pune district on Friday, the police said, reported the PTI.

The accident occurred near Alephata in Junnar Tehsil on the Ahmednagar-Kalyan Road at around 11.30 am, an official said.

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The victims were returning after performing last rites at a crematorium, he said, according to the PTI.

The driver of the truck, which was heading towards Kalyan, lost control of the vehicle on a slope at Gulunjwadi village and mowed down a group of people, the official from Alephata police station said.

Three persons, including a woman and a child, were killed, and five to six others sustained injuries and were rushed to a nearby hospital, he said.

The police were in the process of registering a case, the official said

Two sloth bears found dead on rail tracks in Maharashtra's Gondia

In an another incident in Gondia district of Maharashtra, a female sloth bear and her sub-adult cub were found dead on railway tracks in the district, the state forest department said on Friday, as per the PTI.

The carcasses were spotted by a Railway staffer on train tracks on the Gondia-Balharshah route near a small tunnel within the Arjuni Morgaon forest range of the eastern Maharashtra district on Thursday, the department said.

Preliminary probe suggests the animals were killed in an accident, said forest department officer Sadashiv Awghan.

The carcasses were later disposed of as per guidelines of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The sloth bear is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and the animal is listed as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of threatened species, the news agency reported.

Goods train derails near Valsad in Gujarat

Meanwhile, a wagon of a goods train derailed between Valsad and Surat stations in Gujarat on Friday afternoon but there were no reports of anyone getting injured, a Western Railway (WR) official said, according to the PTI.

The train was 're-railed' at 5.39 pm, more than two hours after the derailment at 3.05 pm, and the traffic on DOWN main line will resume as soon as it receives a track fit certificate, said a WR spokesperson.

The Western Railway's Mumbai division, however, claimed that a trolley wheel of a goods train derailed inside the Dungri station yard, and traffic on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route was not affected.

The train was heading to Palna in Kheda district of Gujarat from Chinchwad near Pune.

The derailment took place when railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was taking stock of railway safety and other issues at the Western Railway headquarters, as per the PTI.

(with PTI inputs)