Indian president's husband accused of land-grab

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian President Pratibha Patils husband has been accused of illegally procuring land belonging to a farmer in western India, reports said Thursday.
The allegations came to light when a court in the presidents home state of Maharashtra ordered the names of Patils husband Devisingh Shekhawat, and five other family members, to be struck off the local land records, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The order came in response to a petition filed by farmer Kishore Bansod, who said the Shekhawats had fraudulently added their names to the title deed of a 3.2 acre (1.3 hectare) site he had refused to sell them.
The Shekhawats own almost 200 acres in the village and were interested in owning this land too, Bansods lawyer, Sunil Gajbhiye, was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.
My client wasnt willing to sell the land. So the Shekhawats got it fraudulently transferred in their names.
There was no comment from the presidents secretariat or Indias ruling Congress party which nominated Patil for the post of president in 2007.
But Shekhawat rubbished the charges of fraud saying: The land officers measured the land in a wrong manner and showed it as ours when my father bought it.
This is not the first time Patil has been embarrassed by accusations of corruption.
Prior to her appointment as Indias first woman president, she was accused of protecting her brother in a murder probe and shielding her husband in a suicide scandal.
There were also charges of nepotism and involvement in a slew of financial scams.
Meanwhile, at least 12 children were killed in a massive fire on Thursday which gutted a school hostel in northeastern India made of bamboo and hay, a local official said.
Most of the 62 students managed to escape from the blaze, which broke out just after midnight at a private hostel housing students attending the missionary school in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Eight students were injured and were being airlifted to hospitals in the state capital of Itanagar, 260 kilometres (160 miles) from the district of Kurung Kummey where the hostel was located.
Twelve bodies have been found. Efforts are on to look for anybody trapped or buried in the debris of the hostel, district magistrate Remu Kemkei told AFP.
He said authorities were investigating the cause of the fire but they believed it was accidental as students were burning candles because of an electrical power failure.
The Don Bosco School missionary school is located in a tribal area of Arunachal Prad-esh.
Most of its students are members of tribes who come from remote areas to study at what is considered to be one of the best schools in the region.
The hostel was privately run as the school did not provide its own accommodation.