After the torrential downpour claimed at least four lives, Mumbai braced for more rains on Thursday with the authorities declaring schools-colleges shut as a precautionary measure.

Wednesday's sudden downpour, which caught lakhs of Mumbaikars hurrying home totally by surprise, saw three casualties, including a 45-year-old woman, Vimal A. Gaikwad, who drowned in an open drain in Andheri east MIDC area.

Another woman drowned near the Zenith Waterfalls in the Khopoli area of Raigad and two persons were killed in a lightning strike at Varap village in Kalyan town of Thane.

The downpour led to flooding in large parts of Mumbai, Thane, Pune and stranded lakhs of commuters rushing home in the evening peak hours, leading to huge chaos.

One such regular commuter, businessman Sandeep Viswambhar, who was driving from Taloja to Powai got stuck in traffic snarls en route and took almost 4-5 hours for a commute that normally takes barely an hour.

In a tragic incident, a man was trampled to death by a wild elephant during the early hours of Thursday in Cherambady village of the Nilgiri district in Tamil Nadu.

The deceased was identified as Kunhimoideen of the same village. Forest department officials told that the incident occurred at 2 a.m

Officials said that Kunhimoideen had come out of his house on hearing the sound of a tree branch falling only to find a wild tusker standing in front of him. Even before he could react, the elephant attacked him,

Agitated local people blocked the Ooty-Batheri state highway. Abdul Gafoor, a local farmer told that they were regularly facing attacks from wild animals, including elephants and wild bores, destroying the agricultural farms. He said that they had complained to the forest department officials about the regular attacks but the officials did not take any action.

At least six people were killed and 16 others injured when a tourist van in which they were travelling hit a tree in Tamil Nadu's Ulundurpet, said officials here on Wednesday.

The incident occurred during the early morning hours and the area was receiving heavy rainfall at the time of the mishap.

Those who met with the accident were returning to their homes in Ranipet after visiting Tiruchendur Murugan temple in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, the officials said.

Police said that when the tourist van reached Mettathur village in Ulundurpet, the driver lost control of the vehicle reportedly due to heavy rain and rammed into a tree on the roadside. Six people died on the spot and several were injured.

In yet another eviction drive in Assam's Goalpara district, at least 2,000 people were evicted from government land, officials said on Tuesday.

A senior government official said, "Four hundred fifty families, who illegally settled in Bandarmatha Reserve Forest, spread across 118 hectares, in Lakhipur range of the district. It will bring down the man-elephant conflict to a great extent."

According to the district administration, the eviction drive was carried out on the directives of Gauhati High Court.

Moreover, notices were served to the "illegal settlers" much before the anti-encroachment drive.

The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the adulteration of ghee used for making Tirupati laddu.

Sarvashrestha Tripathi, Inspector General of Police (IG), Guntur range, will head the SIT.

Gopinath Jetty, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Visakhapatnam range, and Harshavardhana Raju, Superintendent of Police, Kadapa, are the members of the SIT.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday announced a probe by SIT into irregularities at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), which manages the affairs of Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirumala.

Naidu said that the government would take action against those involved in using adulterated ghee after the receipt of the report of SIT.

At least seven persons were killed and five sustained critical injuries after a speeding truck crushed an auto-rickshaw in Madhya Pradesh's Damoh district on Tuesday.

The mishap occurred at Bandakpur road in front of Samanna village of Damoh. The injured were rushed to the district hospital.

The accident site sent shockwaves to the commuters as the bodies were lying in a pool of blood. The police reached the spot immediately and the dead bodies were retrieved with the help of a bulldozer.

Maharashtra Crime Investigation Department (CID) has taken over the probe into the sensational ‘encounter killing’ of Akshay A. Shinde, the prime accused in the Badlapur rape of two nursery girls, officials said here on Tuesday.

As per protocols in such cases, a CID team went to the Mumbra Police Station, Thane, where the formal cases have been filed pertaining to Akshay Shinde’s death in police firing after a gun-fight with a police escort team when he was being shifted from Taloja Jail in Raigad to Badlapur town here Monday (September 23).

Officials indicated that the new special probe team formed by the Thane Police Commissioner on Monday would hand over the relevant papers to the CID for further investigations.

Meanwhile, Akshay Shinde’s autopsy was conducted this afternoon with a medical team comprising three doctors at the Sir J. J. Hospital in Mumbai and later taken back to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwe (Thane).

After completing the relevant formalities, it would be handed over for the last rites to the family, said an official.

Eastern Railway (ER) is all set to celebrate 162 years of operations between the Sealdah station in Kolkata and Ranaghat (Ranaghat Jn today) as the first milestone towards establishing a rail link to Dhaka, the capital of modern-day Bangladesh, from the British capital of India at that time.

The Maitree Express between the Kolkata Station (Chitpur) and Dhaka - which started running in 2008 - continued to take this route till July this year before the train was repeatedly cancelled as per requests from railway authorities in Bangladesh.

"The inaugural train service on the Sealdah-Ranaghat section ran on 29th September 1862. The Sealdah-Ranaghat train services have a rich history dating back to 1857 when Eastern Bengal Railway (EBR) was formed to construct a new rail line from Kolkata to Dhaka,” said Kausik Mitra, CPRO, ER.

He said that at the outset, the line was built to serve the flourishing jute industry of Bengal. At that time, it became a hub for jute production with 38 jute mills producing approximately 31,000 looms.

Two sisters, both of them Indian citizens, managed to catch a last glimpse of their deceased father - a resident of Bangladesh - due to the joint efforts by the Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

The sombre event that took highlighted the relationship that continues to exist between people living on both sides of the Indo-Bangladesh Border (IBB) and the humane response of border guarding forces from both countries.

The event took place under the jurisdiction of the Alipur Border Outpost in the Malda district of West Bengal which has troops of the 12 Bn BSF.

The company commander of the BOP was contacted by the BGB and informed about the death of one Mohtar Ali at Chamusa village in the Chapainawabganj district of Bangladesh.

In a significant development, as many as 584 extremists of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) on Tuesday surrendered to the Tripura government three weeks after an agreement signed with the Centre and the state government in Delhi.

The NLFT and ATTF cadres laid down their arms and ammunition before Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha at a surrender ceremony on Tuesday noon at the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) seventh battalion headquarters at Jampuijala in Sepahijala district.

The cadres of both the outfits have deposited a large number of arms and ammunition, including many sophisticated weapons in the surrender ceremony.