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

  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,...

D Y Patil sports academy returns Rs 1 cr received from Wasankar

  • Special MPID Court to hear matter on Feb 29 


By Dheeraj Fartode 
Under fire for accepting Rs One crore from Prashant Wasankar who is cooling heels behind bars for cheating gullible investors, D Y Patil Sports Academy has quietly returned this sum of Rs One crore to Economic Offences Wing (EoW) under protest. The academy had taken the money from Wasankar in form of donation in the year 2012-13. Earlier, the academy was not ready to return the money and conveyed the EoW that it was not possible under rules to pay back the amount. The Hitavada was first to publish the news -- “Wasankar donated Rs 3.4 crore to trusts of Vikhe Patil and DY Patil” on February 16, 2016. The D Y Patil sports academy had returned Rs one crore on February 22 under protest. The matter will come up in the special MPID court for hearing on February 29. 

Two other charitable trusts including Pravara Medical Trust, DY Patil International Academy are also on EoW’s radar for recovery of Rs 2.40 crore. Both trusts are related to Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and former governor of Bihar and Congress leader D Y Patil whose son Satej Patil was minister of state for Home during DF regime. 

Wasankar had donated Rs 3.40 crore in 2012-13 to these charitable trusts, connected to political big-wigs of then ruling alliance. EoW sleuths are also probing whether there was any quid-pro-quo. Sources informed that the financial transactions took place between year 2012 and 2013 and Wasankar Wealth Management Ltd had used RTGS route for the money transfer. The Hitavada learnt that a sum of Rs One crore was transferred to Pravara Medical Trust on September 2, 2013. D Y Patil International Academy received Rs One crore on 20 November 2012 and Rs 40 lakh on August 26, 2013. Similarly, Rs One crore was transferred to account of DY Patil Sports Academy on February 17, 2012 as donation. 

After detecting the financial transactions, the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of Nagpur City Police had written a letter to these three institutions and asked them to file reply. The three institutions in their response had claimed that their institutions were charitable trusts and the money was used for charitable purpose only.

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