Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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| Nagpur Railway Station |
A RAILWAY employee died after inhaling poisonous gas in a choked gutter he had wriggled into to open at Railway Station on Saturday evening. Identified as Manoj Pannalal Grawkar (40), the deceased was a resident of Ajni. According to Government Railway Police (GRP), Manoj and six other workers attached to Central Railway’s Inspector of Works (IoW) Department were on their routine duty.
They came near the gutter. Manoj removed the manhole cover and wriggled into the gutter to remove blockage. When Manoj did not come out after a long time, another employee went inside the 12 ft deep gutter. He was shocked to find Manoj in an unconscious state. He tried to rescue Manoj but he too fell unconscious due to inhalation of the poisonous gas.
Other workers somehow pulled him out and within minutes, he regained his consciousness. The employees immediately alerted superiors about Manoj lying unconscious in the gutter. Railway Protection Force (RPF) jawans immediately informed the Fire Brigade. Rescuers from Fire Brigade went inside and pulled Manoj out. Manoj was rushed to Mayo Hospital where the doctors declared him dead.
Reacting to the tragedy, Vinod Chaturvedi, Divisional Secretary, Central Railway Mazdoor Sangh (CRMS), Nagpur Division, said, “It is a shocking incident for us. The work was given to a private party by the administration. As the private parties are unable to do the work, railway workers are pressed into such emergency service without caring for their lives.”
Bashir Khan, Secretary, Administrative Branch, National Railway Mazdoor Union (NRMU), Nagpur Division, also criticised the officers of the Health Department for their casual approach. Knowing well the dangers involved in cleaning of gutter line, the department should have taken care by providing proper equipment to the workers, he added.
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