Gas renders 10 ill

RANCHI: At least 10 people were taken ill on Wednesday after inhaling methane gas leaking from a colliery in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district, police said. Two of them are said to be in a critical condition. The gas leak was reported early morning from the Bathdih colliery of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) in Dhanbad. — HNS

Mumbai terror threat

MUMBAI: Security at Mumbai’s upscale World Trade Centre was beefed up on Wednesday after an anonymous letter threatening to blast the high rise towers on Thursday was handed over to police. The letter was received by the World Trade Centre at south Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade area on Tuesday and sent to the police commissioner’s office. “The letter threatened to blow up the twin towers on May 24. The letter, however, did not give any specific reason for blowing it up,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-I) Brijesh Singh. — HNS

Top cop hurt in J&K

JAMMU: A police officer and his driver were critically injured on Wednesday when a militant fired at them outside their office in Jammu and Kashmir’s Mendhar town. According to police officials here, Deputy Superintendent of Police SP Yougal Manhas had reached his office and was getting out of the car when the militant fired indiscriminately. By the time his guards retaliated, the assailant had escaped. — HNS

Blast kills two in Pak

QUETTA: A timebomb hidden in a shopping bag exploded at a bus stop in gas-rich but restive southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring two more, police said. The blast happened in the remote town of Hub in Baluchistan province, near the Arabian Sea coast, police official Mohammad Siddique said. No one claimed responsibility for the explosion. — AFP

7 killed in Thai south

Yala: Seven people including two teenagers have been killed in the Thai south, police said on Wednesday, while 11 others were injured in a spate of bombings by suspected separatist rebels. — AFP

77th bird flu death

Jakarta: A five-year-old Indonesian girl has died from bird flu, taking the country’s death toll from the virus to 77, a health ministry official said on Wednesday. The girl died last Thursday at a hospital in Solo city on the main island of Java, said the official from the ministry’s bird flu information centre. She had come in contact with at least 20 dead chickens in her neighbourhood in Wonogiri town, the official said.— AFP