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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  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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Kite kills: boy run over by superfast train

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By Dheeraj Fartode
A passion of teenager for kites ended in tragedy after he got run over by a passenger train near Kumbharpura on Sunday morning. The incident occurred when Chhindwara-Nagpur Narrow Gauge train was crossing the Panchpaoli area. The 15-year-old, Nikhil Devanand Pathak, a student of SSC, and only son of parents, ignored the approaching train in a bid to latch onto a kite that was about to fall down on other side of the railway line.
Kite chasing
According to Panchpaoli police, Nikhil along with neighbouring friends were chasing a kite on the railway track. Chhindwara-Nagpur passenger was zooming in from other side around the same time. While Nikhil's friends stopped in their track, the teenager got engrossed in looking upto the kite in the sky. He was continuously running in direction of the kite and got caught-up in the train, the police said. Nikhil was knocked death on the spot.
Panchpaoli police shifted Nikhil's body for autopsy to  Mayo Hospital and registered a case of an accidental death. Nikhil was the only brother of two sisters, Darshana (15) and Gauri. Before leaving home for chasing the kite, Nikhil told his father that he will be back in five minutes. His father was getting ready to leave for a wedding at neighbour's house. Devanand works at District Business Education and Training Institute. Nikhil's mother, Sadhana, had gone to a relatives house when the incident took place. 



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