Skip to main content

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

By
  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,...
Post a Comment

ISI operatives extracting Indian Army movement information from Railways

Image
By

  • Many officers gave away security related information to the caller

By Dheeraj Fartode
Shaken by Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) backed operatives attempt to wriggle out sensitive operational details and security measures at stations, Railway Board sounded out a warning to its field officials, asking them to beware. The Board’s caution notice was issued after it came to fore that details about movement of army rake was extricated in one instance. The caller managed to hoodwink the concern railway official by identifying himself as senior official of Defence Ministry. However, Intelligence Bureau soon got into loop when they learnt about spoofing exercise on part of ISI backed intelligence operatives.

Chief Operating Manager (CoM), Central Railway, R D Tripathi, recently sent a communication to heads of its five divisions, giving details of spoofed number exercise and said this can mislead any top official in divulging sensitive information. A top security official confirmed receipt of such letter and said attempts were made to get information about security measures and more about the movement of military rakes.

The few cases that came to notice of intelligence agency in country saw the callers across the border dialing mobile numbers of a senior railway officials seeking information about movement of train traffic, with stress on movement of troops and their equipment. Many officers gave away security related information to the caller. After investigations the call was traced to Pakistan based city and cyber experts then decoded the trick and that led to generation of warning to all government establishment and railways in particular, the sources further stated.

The CR’s letter is of June 11, 2013 warning divisional officers that PIOs have succeeded in ferreting out sensible information having serious implication for national security. He directed officers to double check any such attempts seeking out top secret information. A top level Intelligence officer said that the information can be used for major terror attack on Indian Railways.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IGP Prasanna : The man who stopped Obama’s convoy

By
IGP Mallikarjuna Prasanna By Dheeraj Fartode  Published on Feb/17/2019 NOT many are aware of an episode during the then US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in 2010. The world’s most powerful man was made to wait for 11 minutes in his car while an Indian cop took on American officials for their unwarranted interference in the US President’s security. KM Mallikarjuna Prasanna, Special Inspector General of Police of Nagpur Range, still continues to work with the same pride, wearing his patriotism on the sleeve. “Had they (Americans) deployed their personnel for area security, then the message would have been Indians are unable to protect VIPs in their nation,” recounted Prasanna on the episode that is one of the highlights of his distinguished career of a skillful investigator. The story of the IPS officer of 2000 batch is worth a film. In fact, a movie (Nagarjun-starrer ‘Officer’) has already been made by Ram Gopal Verma last year. His real life script als...
9 comments
Read more

DCP Sunil Kolhe gets IPS cadre

By
DCP (crime) Sunil Kolhe By Dheeraj Fartode About 28 State Police Service (SPS) officers were granted  Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre on Monday. At Nagpur, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) (Crime) Sunil Kolhe is among these officers. With their promotion, Maharashtra Government will fill-up the existing vacancies of cadre posts across the State. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India, approved the promotion and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), issued the notification of 28 state police officers into IPS cadre.  Maharashtra Government had earlier empanelled the 28 officers for promotion of SPS officers into IPS and criteria was they should have served for atleast eight years as Superintendent of Police (SP) or Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). The list includes names of officers belonging to Deputy Superintendent of Police (Dy.SP) batches between 1988 and 1995, who were promoted to the IPS cadre. The officers are S V Ja...
Post a Comment
Read more

How a mom won fight for justice after 15 years

By
Pintu Shirke  THE love of a mother can move mountains. But for Vijaya Dilipsingh Shirke the task ahead was much tougher. She was taking on the mountain of a corrupt system, enduring threats to life, and fighting the might of muscle power. Never did she flinch even once, and after a longdrawn legal battle of 15 years ensured that the killers of her son did not go unpunished. After all, it was a resolute mother’s promise to her  slain son. On October 31, 2017 the mother was full of anxiety waiting for a word about the outcome of hearing in the Apex Court. The decision would have a bearing on the Shirkes’ years of struggle to get justice for their slain son Swapnil alias Pintu Shirke. When the learned Apex Court judges threw out challenge of main culprits, including prime plotter Vijay Mate, and upheld life sentence handed out by the High Court, the 15-yearlong fight of Vijaya Shirke had finally reached its logical conclusion. “The promise made to Swapnil when...
2 comments
Read more