About 40 people were dead and 160 missing after an overcrowded passenger ferry with 350 people aboard split into two and sank in a river in north-east India in a storm.

AN Indian labourer who had his scalp ripped off by a rampaging leopard over the weekend has spoken of his horrific ordeal, saying he was trying to save the cat when it turned on him.

A LITTLE-KNOWN Islamic group claimed responsibility in a text message sent to a news channel yesterday, for serial blasts in India’s north-east that claimed 76 lives the day before, police said.

HUNDREDS of Hindi-speakers in India’s northeastern state of Assam have started fleeing ethnic violence which has claimed 29 lives in the past week.

SOLDIERS patrolled India’s northeastern state of Assam yesterday after an orgy of killing, looting and arson targeted at settlers from a neighbouring state.