HP forest official arrested on murder charges

Shimla, Dec 17 (UNI) Two Himachal Pradesh forest officials have been arrested for allegedly murdering a youth after an altercation with him, besides recovering three bodies from a room in the town's suburb, police sources said.

Jubbal division Forest Range Officer Pawan Chauhan and his assistant Narender have been arrested on charges of murdering one Shashi Sharma whose body was recovered from a gorge near Hatkoti in Shimla district on Thursday.

While the sources claimed that the two were arrested following investigations that pointed towards their involvement in the murder, villagers alleged that police intervened in the matter only after they resorted to dharna and protests.

Sharma's body was found in a gorge near Hatkoti on Thursday and police had handed over the body after postmortem, saying it was death due to falling.

However, the relatives of the deceased alleged that he was beaten up by the range officer and his assistant and later thrown into the gorge following an altercation between them after collision of their vehicles.

Sharma went missing after the incident and his body was found in a gorge soon after, the sources added.

A case has been registered and investigations were on, they added.

Elsewhere, police recovered three dead bodies from Salok village of Summer Hill suburb of the state capital here.

The dead have been identified as Gopal Singh, his wife Sheela and son Nitin 13, and police suspect that the cause of their accident was suffocation due to coal gas from the fireplace.

The sources said a case has been registered.

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