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Bizarre Bazaar: 26th Feb 2009
KOLKATA, India
The kingpin of a nationwide kidney racket was arrested in a West Bengal village on the India-Bangladesh border. Manick Chowdhury, alias Partha, supplied kidneys to hospitals in Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai for the past two years, police allege. Chowdhury’s men would promise jobs to unemployed youth and get them admitted to a hospital. “If the kidneys were found healthy, Chowdhury used to convince or force the youths to sell one of their kidneys. They were offered Rs.80,000 to Rs.150,000 ($2,000 to $3,800) depending on the condition of the organ,” a senior police official said.
CHANDIGARH, India
A 50-year-old man who had been married six times previously landed in police custody after his seventh wedding, on the complaint of his latest bride. “We got a complaint Thursday from a woman who is a government employee here that her newly-wedded husband, Om Prakash Sharma, married her unlawfully and did not tell her about his past six marriages,” Ram Gopal, station house officer, Sector-19 told IANS. “Acting on the complaint we have arrested her husband.”
KATHMANDU, Nepal
A month after the brutal murder of a female radio journalist in Nepal’s violent Terai plains, another journalist has been attacked in the southern lowlands in broad daylight. The gunmen managed to escape. Gyanendra Raj Mishra, a radio journalist working for Garima FM, a private radio station in Birgunj town on the India-Nepal border, was shot near a crowded theatre. Twenty-nine journalists have been killed in Nepal since 1996, when the Maoists began their “People’s War” in a bid to overthrow Nepal’s constitutional monarchy.
LUCKNOW, India
A man-eating tiger that has been on the prowl for over a month and killed five people in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur district will be shot dead, a forest official said. Dudhwa, the country’s second largest tiger reserve, has 106 tigers according to the official census undertaken last year. The man-eater strayed out of the sanctuary limits and has been on the prowl in human habitations. According to forest officials, the tiger is now hiding in the sugarcane fields of Kaanp-Tanda village, adjoining the sanctuary. The government allowed the killing of the tiger after hundreds of villagers threatened to attack the forest officials for failing to trap the animal.
LUCKNOW, India
A 50-year-old Dalit man has urged the Uttar Pradesh authorities to kill him and his bedridden wife, saying they are not able to cope with poverty. Ram Lakhan, a resident of Paura village, has made the bizarre request to local officials. Lakhan said he has exhausted all his resources getting his 44-year-old wife Shyama Devi treated since she fractured her spine two years ago in an accident. Now, the couple, abandoned by their four sons, struggle to feed themselves and are begging for death, a local official said.
BHUBANESWAR, India
A 40-year-old Christian man was found murdered in Orissa’s Kandhamal district last weekend. At least 38 people, mostly Christians, were killed in the district in communal riots last year. The district witnessed violence after the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his aides Aug. 23. While police blamed Maoists for the killings, some Hindu organizations held Christians responsible and launched attacks on the community. Christian groups have denied any involvement in the murders.
PATNA, India
In a rare punishment, Bihar’s juvenile court has asked four boys to serve patients undergoing treatment at government hospitals. The boys, accused of burglary and assault, were punished by the Juvenile Justice Board. A court official said the boys would serve the patients for two weeks within. The boys committed the crime eight years ago.
PATNA, India
All along the stretch of India’s holiest river Ganga, the zooplanktons that play a critical role in its food chain are developing tumours, says a biologist. M. Omair from the University of Michigan in the U.S. found that many of the zooplanktons that are eaten by the small fish in the river have tumours. The small fish are in turn eaten by the bigger fish, so the zooplanktons are getting into the entire food chain, including humans who eat fish from the river. According to an estimate, throughout its 2,510 km length from Gaumukh to the Bay of Bengal, nearly one billion litres of untreated sewage flows into the Ganga river.
LUCKNOW, India
Sushma Verma of Lucknow has become India’s youngest matriculate by passing the exam in 2007 when she was just seven years old. Born Feb. 2 2000, Sushma Verma achieved this feat when she took the Uttar Pradesh board high school examinations in 2007. She had secured 354 marks out of 600 in the examinations. Sushma Verma, who has taken her class 11 examinations and is awaiting the results, hopes to become a doctor.
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