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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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Prof Hargopal demands bail to Prof Saibaba on humanitarian grounds

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Saibaba is 90% disabled and there are no facilities in the jail for disabled persons, said Prof Hargopal

By Dheeraj Fartode
Senior Human Rights Activist Prof Hargopal on Saturday met Delhi University’s arrested Professor G N Saibaba for his alleged Maoist links at Central Jail and demanded immediate bail to him citing his health condition. “Saibaba is 90% disabled and there are no facilities in the jail for disabled persons. Government must grant him bail on humanitarian grounds,” said Prof Hargopal. 
G N Saibaba (File Picture) 

Addressing a press conference at Tilak Patrakar Bhavan, Prof Hargopal said that he met Saibaba in the jail and discussed his problems. His health is deteriorating and needs super specialty treatment, said Prof Hargopal. “According to law every disabled jail inmate should get proper facilities. However, there is no facility for Saibaba, whose life depends on wheel chair,” Hargopal informed. The under-trial is being treated as a prisoner, which is causing injustice to him”, said Prof Hargopal. 
“If the offence is not proved in the court then the punishment -- which is Saibaba getting right now in the jail -- will become punishment to an innocent person, which is against the law” Prof Hargopal stated. Getting bail is the right of an individual, Prof Hargopal has sought government’s intervene in the matter. The trials should be expedited in the case. 
Police have put many innocent tribals of Sironcha and Aheri area of Gadchiroli district in Nagpur Central Jail, he alleged. For the past several years no one paying attention to their problems. “How can a government lodge any innocent citizen in the jail for years together,” he remarked. Demanding withdrawal of Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act, under which Saibaba has been arrested, Prof Hargopal called it a ‘draconian law’.  Naxalism is the social problem and government should work out a proper method to resolve it, he said. Shoma Sena was present at the press conference. 

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