Chatra (Jharkhand), Feb 4 (PTI) A journalist was among four people who were killed after a coal-laden truck hit two motorcycles in separate incidents in Jharkhand’s Chatra district, police said on Friday.
The accidents took place near Banhe village in Simaria police station area on Thursday night.
The truck first hit the journalist’s motorcycle and then rammed into another motorcycle on which three people, who are yet to be identified, were travelling, a police officer said.
The truck has been seized but no arrests have been made so far.
Locals have blocked the movement of coal-laden trucks on roads from Simaria to Hazaribag, Chatra and Tandwa demanding adequate compensation to the deceased from Central Coalfields Ltd.
Local journalist bodies have demanded Rs 25 lakh as compensation for the next of the kin of Shashi Bhushan Singh, who was a journalist in Hindi newspaper ‘Awaj’.
The four bodies were retrieved from the protesters, whose agitation since Thursday night was underway till the report was being filed, and sent for post-mortem examination.
SDO Sudhir Das and SDPO Ashok Priyadarshi reached the spot and promised a compensation of Rs 1.25 lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased.
However, BJP’s Simaria MLA Kisun Kumar Das demanded that if the journalist’s family gets Rs 25 lakh as compensation, the kin of the remaining three deceased should also get similar compensation.
State minister Satyanand Bhokta said he will take up the issue with the administration. PTI COR NAM ACD ACD
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