A popular Indian film star and three other people have been killed in the crash of a small plane near the Indian city of Bangalore.
The actress, Soundarya, was on a political campaign trip for the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Authorities say the privately-owned Cessna aircraft caught fire shortly after take-off from Bangalore on a flight to a nearby city, Karimnagar, in neighboring Andhra Pradesh state.
Beside the actress, the dead were her brother, a B-J-P official and the pilot.
The cause of the crash has not been determined.
Soundarya was the daughter of a leading Bangalore-based film director. She had been in nearly 100 moves in the Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam languages.
Parliamentary elections in India begin on Tuesday. The main contenders -- the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress Party -- both have recruited stars of the country's "Bollywood" film industry for campaign appearances.