At least 27 people killed in a fire at an amusement park in western India, police say

NEW DELHI (AP) — A major fire broke out Saturday at an amusement park in Gujarat state in western India, killing at least 27 people, including several children, police and media reports said.

The fire erupted at the park in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat state. Police Commissioner Raju Bhargava said that the blaze was under control and a rescue operation was underway.

Police officer Vinayak Patel said that it was difficult to identify the bodies.

Police said they have detained the owner and the manager of the amusement park for questioning as they launched an investigation in the cause.

“So far we have confirmed the death of 27 persons in the fire incident," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Patel as saying, adding that the dead included four children under the age of 12.

The park is usually packed with families with children enjoying the school summer vacation over the weekend.

Footage showed firefighters clearing debris around collapsed tin roof structures that media reports said were used for bowling, go-carting, and trampoline attractions.

The amusement park was privately owned by Yuvraj Singh Solanki and Bhargava said that police would file a case of negligence against him.

"We will be registering an offense for negligence and the deaths which have occurred. Further investigation will take place once we complete the rescue operation," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X that he was “extremely distressed by the fire ... in Rajkot. My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. Prayers for the injured."

Fires are common in India, where builders and residents often flout building laws and safety codes.

Firefighters and locals douse a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Rescuers carry a dead body of a person killed in a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Firefighters douse a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Mangled and burnt ceiling of in an amusement park is seen after a fire in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Locals carry water to douse a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Rescuers carry dead bodies of person killed in a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Firefighters and locals douse a fire which broke out in an amusement park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Firefighters douse a fire which broke out in a fun park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

Firefighters douse a fire which broke out in a fun park, in Rajkot in the Indian state of Gujarat, Saturday, May 25, 2024. A massive fire broke out on Saturday in a fun park in western India, killing more than ten people and injuring some others, news reports said. (AP Photo/Chirag Chotaliya)

MOSCOW (AP) — The espionage trial in Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will begin on June 26 and will be held behind closed doors, a statement from the court that will hear the case said Monday.

Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, has been behind bars since his March 2023 arrest and faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

The trial is to be held in the Sverdlovsky Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city, where he was arrested. Gershkovich has since been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) to the west.

The court said trial will be closed to the public, as is usual in espionage cases.

Gershkovich, 32, is accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a facility that produces and repairs military equipment, the Prosecutor General’s office said last week in the first details of the accusations against him.

The reporter, his employer and the U.S. government have denied the allegations, and Washington designated him as wrongfully detained.

Russia’s Federal Security Service alleged that Gershkovich was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets but provided no evidence to back up the accusations.

“Evan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week. “The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows that they’re false. He should be released immediately.”

The Biden administration has sought to negotiate Gershkovich's release, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap only after a trial verdict.

Uralvagonzavod, a state tank and railroad car factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, became known in 2011-12 as a bedrock of support for President Vladimir Putin.

Plant foreman Igor Kholmanskih appeared on Putin’s annual phone-in program in December 2011 and denounced mass protests occurring in Moscow at the time as a threat to “stability,” proposing that he and his colleagues travel to the Russian capital to help suppress the unrest. A week later, Putin appointed Kholmanskikh to be his envoy in the region.

Putin has said he believes a deal could be reached to free Gershkovich, hinting he would be open to swapping him for a Russian national imprisoned in Germany. That appeared to be Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence for the 2019 killing in Berlin of a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent.

Asked by The Associated Press about Gershkovich, Putin said the U.S. is “taking energetic steps” to secure his release. He told international news agencies at an economic forum in St. Petersburg in early June that any such releases “aren’t decided via mass media” but through a “discreet, calm and professional approach.”

“And they certainly should be decided only on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, in an allusion to a potential prisoner swap.

Gershkovich was the first U.S. journalist taken into custody on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986 at the height of the Cold War. Gershkovich’s arrest shocked foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country had enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech after sending troops into Ukraine.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a reporter for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship, has been jailed since October awaiting trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information about the Russian military.

The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, Gershkovich is fluent in Russian and moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.

U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who regularly visited Gershkovich in prison and attended his court hearings, has called the charges against him “fiction” and said that Russia is “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends.”

Separately, U.S. soldier Gordon Black is on trial in Vladivostok on charges of theft and threatening murder in a dispute with a Russian woman. Black, who was stationed in South Korea but visiting the Pacific Coast city, on Monday told a court that he denied the allegation of threatening murder but “partially” admitted to theft, according to the state news agency RIA-Novosti.

The trial of a US reporter charged with espionage in Russia is to begin June 26

The trial of a US reporter charged with espionage in Russia is to begin June 26

FILE - Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, April 23, 2024. Gershkovich, who has been jailed for over a year in Russia on espionage charges, will stand trial in the city of Yekaterinburg, authorities said Thursday June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)