Renowned Bollywood actor Paresh Rawal has said that the people of Gujarat will bear inflation but not "Bangladeshis and Rohingyas" living next door, and his stereotyping “cooking fish” remark has also infuriated Bengalis in India. The actor made the remarks while campaigning for BJP in Gujarat a week ago, reports NDTV.  On Monday, Paresh Rawal  was called for questioning by the Kolkata Police over his comments on Bengalis after former Member of Parliament and CPI(M) leader Md Salim filed a complaint against him. Read more: Indian beauty pageant celebrates transgender life Md Salim wanted Paresh Rawal to be charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including for promoting enmity, intentional insult, public mischief etc. "Gas cylinders are expensive, but their price will come down. People will get employment too. But what will happen if Rohingya migrants and Bangladeshis start living around you, like in Delhi? What will you do with gas cylinders? Cook fish for the Bengalis?" — Paresh Rawal was quoted as saying last week in Valsad. Read more: Protesting ‘Hindi imposition’, South Indian man burns himself to death Paresh Rawal's statements sparked outrage in West Bengal, with the ruling Trinamool Congress strongly condemning him. The veteran actor’s efforts to explain his comments with an apology later fueled the controversy more as he claimed he meant “illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas” when he used the word “Bengalis”.

Six people were killed when a speeding car crashed into an auto-rickshaw and a bike in the Indian state of Gujarat, police said on Friday. The accident occurred near Dali village of  Gujarat's Anand district, 100 kms from the western state's capital Gandhinagar, on Thursday night. "The car first hit the auto-rickshaw carrying four people and then the bike as its driver tried to speed away," a senior police officer told the local media. All the four occupants of the three-wheeler passenger vehicle and two teenagers on the bike sustained serious injuries in the impact of the crash. Read: Five relatives of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput die in India accident "They were rushed to a local hospital, where doctors declared them dead on arrival. The car driver also sustained minor injuries in the accident," the officer said. A probe has been ordered into the accident, he said. "The car driver has been booked for rash and negligent driving. He will be arrested upon discharge from the hospital." Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.  The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.

At least 28 people have died and 60 others became ill from drinking altered liquor in western India, officials said Tuesday. Senior government official Mukesh Parmar said the deaths occurred in Ahmedabad and Botad districts of Gujarat state, where manufacturing, sale and consumption of liquor are prohibited. It was not immediately known what chemical was used to alter the liquor. Ashish Gupta, Gujarat state's police chief, said several suspected bootleggers who were involved in selling the spiked alcohol have been detained. Read: 8 killed in India road crash Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency. Illicit liquor has also become a hugely profitable industry across India where bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate. In 2020, at least 120 people died after drinking tainted liquor in India’s northern Punjab state.

A special anti-terrorism court in the western Indian state of Gujarat on Friday sentenced to death as many as 38 people in a 13-year-old serial bomb blasts case. This is by far the highest number of death sentences given by any Indian court in one go. The same court had earlier convicted 49 people for the terror attack -- a series of 31 blasts in a span of an hour -- that claimed 56 lives and injured more than 200 others in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat in 2008. Also read: Indian Minister's son, accused of killing farmers, granted bail Eleven of the remaining convicts have been sentenced to life imprisonment by special court judge AR Patel. None of the life-term convicts would be entitled to parole after 14 years, the court made it clear. In fact, a total of 80 accused were put on trial in the case. On February 8, the court, however, acquitted 28 others in the case for lack of evidence. During the trial, the prosecution held the home-grown terror outfit Indian Mujahideen responsible for the blasts.  Also read: PM Narendra Modi sold tea at this Vadnagar stall in Gujarat. Now it will be a tourist spot The terrorists had carried out the serial blasts as an act of revenge for the 2002 riots in Gujarat that claimed the lives of over 1,000 people, mostly minority Muslims, according to police.