In a suspected case of consumption of illicit alcohol, three persons lost their lives within hours of being hospitalised in Bihar’s Siwan district, police said on Friday.

Ajit Kumar Singh, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Lakri Nabiganj police station, said that no conclusions can be drawn on the cause of death till postmortem reports are available.

The victims, all residents of Lakri Nabiganj village, were admitted to Sadar Hospital in Siwan on Thursday evening.

“We received information about the incident on Friday morning and dispatched a team to the hospital to gather further information,” SHO Singh said.

The unusual nature of the deaths has alarmed the police even as sources suggested that the victims might have consumed spurious alcohol.

The officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), since Thursday morning, are conducting raids and search operations in and around Kolkata in connection with a multi-crore alleged financial fraud and money laundering through lottery tickets.

As per the last information available, three teams of the Central agency officials are carrying out simultaneous raid and search operations in at least three locations in Kolkata, one at Michael Nagar in Madhyamgram area in North 24 Parganas district in the northern outskirts of Kolkata, and the other two being at a state capital.

Sources aware of the development said that the place at Michael Nagar where the raid and search are on is a lottery ticket printing factory. The other two places where simultaneous raids and search operations are going on are Lake Market and Lake Gardens, both in South Kolkata.

The counter-narcotics police have discovered a huge quantity of illicit drugs, including heroin, and arrested nine alleged drug traffickers in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, provincial police spokesman Mullah Asadullah Jamshid said on Wednesday.

The contraband, which includes 3 kg heroin, 122 kg opium poppy, 2 kg hashish and more than two tons of material used in manufacturing heroin, was discovered during a series of recent operations, the official said.

Police also destroyed 2.5 acres of hashish farm recently, the official said, adding that no one would be allowed to produce or smuggle illegal drugs in the province, according to news agency.

Police have arrested a gang of criminals in northern Afghanistan's Balkh province, said a statement of the provincial police office on Monday.

The arrested criminals were allegedly involved in theft and robbery in the provincial capital, Mazar-i-Sharif city, reports news agency, citing the statement.

To ensure law and order, police units have intensified patrol, mostly with motorcycles elsewhere in the province, the statement further said.

Police have also discovered a machinegun and taken into custody two individuals on a charge of attempts to smuggle the weapon out of the eastern Laghman province on Sunday.

Counter-narcotics police in Afghanistan's Kandahar province have uncovered illicit drugs, including heroin and opium poppy, and arrested seven suspected drug smugglers over the past week, provincial police spokesman Mullah Asadullah Jamshid said on Saturday.

The seizures, which included heroin, opium poppy, hashish, and equipment used for heroin production, were made during operations conducted across parts of the province, Jamshid said.

The official emphasised that police are committed to preventing drug production and trafficking within the province, news agency reported.

A foreign woman from Thailand was shot in the chest in Udaipur city on Saturday, said police, adding that the investigation is on to ascertain the intent of the crime and the miscreants behind it.

Officials said that the woman was left in a hospital by three boys who later fled.

Considering the case suspicious, the injured was referred to Maharana Bhupal Government Hospital (MB).

The woman, identified as Thogkot, is a resident of Thailand. She was staying at Hotel Veer Palace in Udaipur. Thogkot (24) left the hotel at 1.30 a.m. early on Saturday, got into a taxi and left.

In yet another shootout in the national Capital, one person was killed and another injured when assailants opened fire at them in Kabir Nagar in Delhi early on Saturday.

The incident occurred in the Welcome police station area in Kabir Nagar when the victim was having food at his home in the wee hours of Saturday.

The deceased has been identified as Nadeem.

Five rounds of bullets were fired at the victim by the assailants, leading to Nadeem's death on the spot and injury to a minor. Another person who was with the victim at the time of the shootout escaped unhurt.

The motorcycle-borne assailants barged into Nadeem's house in the wee hours of Saturday, committed the crime and escaped on the victim's scooty.

Three persons have been arrested here for allegedly raping a woman hailing from Odisha and then abandoning her in the national capital's Sarai Kale Khan area last month, the police said on Thursday.

The arrested individuals were identified as Prabhu Mahto - an auto rickshaw driver, Parmod Babu, and Mohammad Shamsul.

The incident came to light in the early hours of October 11 when a call was received by the police at around 3.15 a.m. about a woman, who was bleeding, lying on the roadside in the Sarai Kale Khan area.

Three people were arrested on Thursday on the charges of defrauding a man of Rs 92 lakh, Tamil Nadu Cyber Crime Branch Police said.

The arrested individuals were identified as Nitish Kumar and Chandrashekhar from Namakkal, and Suresh from Coimbatore.

Police officials revealed that in the past too, the suspects had been involved in similar criminal activities.

The man was lured by a Facebook advertisement promoting a high-profit online trading scheme.

An elderly woman was killed and three other people were injured in a crash involving a car that was allegedly stolen at gunpoint in Australia.

Police in the northeastern state of Queensland said in a statement that a 69-year-old woman died when an allegedly stolen blue Audi being driven by a 16-year-old boy crashed into her vehicle, north of the state capital of Brisbane on Thursday morning.

Emergency services were called to the scene of the crash in Murrumba Downs, approximately 20 km north of central Brisbane, at about 9.45 a.m. local time.

Police officers and paramedics commenced CPR on the 69-year-old woman but were unable to revive her, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

The 16-year-old was arrested at the scene and was taken to hospital with significant leg injuries, news agency reported.