Lucknow

Six Indian police officers have been sacked for apparently failing to act on reports of missing children believed to have been raped and killed, authorities said on Thursday. This follows the discovery of their remains. The skulls and bones of at least 17 people, mostly children, were dug up last week in the backyard of a house in Noida.

Thousands of people flocked to temples in northern India on Monday hoping to see a miracle as word spread that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk, television reports said. Television pictures showed milk disappearing as people held up spoons full of the liquid to idols of deities such as Lord Shiva and Ganesha.

Another 21 people died from lightning and house collapses in northern India, an official said on Saturday, taking the nationwide death toll to at least 328 since the monsoon season began two months ago. The new casualties were reported in northern Uttar Pradesh state, one of the worst hit by the heavy rains.

The official death toll from lightning strikes and powerful storms rose to 76 on Friday as annual summer monsoon rains tore through India ahead of schedule, authorities said. Seventeen more deaths were reported from late on Thursday night in three Indian states on top of 58 people who died earlier.

A spurned Indian suitor blew himself up at the wedding of the woman who rejected him, killing himself and injuring the groom and four other people, police said on Saturday. Police said the electrician blew himself up by pressing a switch in his shoe when the bride and groom were taking their vows in the Hindu ceremony.

Dense fog blanketed northern India, disrupting rail and air traffic, as the death toll from a severe cold wave in India rose to 144 on Tuesday, officials said. In the worst-hit state of Uttar Pradesh, at least 12 people died overnight as hundreds of homeless people huddled around public bonfires lit by civic authorities.

The official death toll from Japanese encephalitis in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh reached 1 058 on Monday after 12 more children died from the mosquito-borne disease, officials said. The worst outbreak of the fatal illness in nearly two decades had been expected to peter out with the onset of winter, but about 350 people are still in state-run hospitals.

The death toll from an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in northern India rose to 664 on Monday with 18 more deaths as doctors appealed for more ventilators to save the lives of young patients. On Sunday, a state government spokesperson said more than 2 400 patients were lying in hospitals, often two to a bed.

The death toll from Japanese encephalitis rose to 460 in a northern Indian state after 28 more people died overnight from an outbreak of the mosquito-born disease, officials said on Monday. More than 500 patients, mostly children, were being treated in government hospitals across Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and among its poorest.

Torrential rain killed at least 36 people and washed away houses and farms in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday. Thirty-five of the people, including a number of women and children, died when flash floods submerged homes on Tuesday in Sitapur district.