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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,...

Mystery deepens in Timki double murder, suicide case

THE double murder by a woman in Timki on Friday got mysterious with police confirming that the five-year-old boy brutally killed by Manisha Kushwah (25) was not her son. 

In the wee hours of Friday, Manisha had killed her husband Sarwar Alam alias Mohammad Ali Mohammad Harun (35) and Dadu (5) by slitting their throats with a sharp-edged knife before committing suicide in their rented house near Timki Police Chowky.

On Saturday there was a new twist to the case when Manisha’s sister confirmed to the cops on telephone that the boy, Dadu (5) was her own son.

After collecting call data records of the cellphones found in Sarwar Alam’s house and suicide note left by Manisha, cops contacted the relatives of the deceased in Kanpur and informed them about the incident. On Friday night, the relatives of the deceased told police that they would be reaching Nagpur on Saturday. Surprisingly, none arrived so far to claim the bodies.

When investigators tried to contact the relatives again their cellphones were switched off. “Why did Manisha kill her husband and her sister’s son and her own husband, this is the basic question troubling our minds. We want to find out the motive as parents of Manisha and Sarwar Alam had lodged missing complaints with Kanpur Police,” a senior police officer told ‘The Hitavada.’

The suicide note in a notebook left by Manisha and video cliping found in their cellphone, too, were not of any help to find out the motive. The officer said that the matter would be cleared only after family members or relatives of the deceased come to Nagpur.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Sarwar Alam alias Mohammad Ali and Manisha were from different religions. They allegedly had an affair. Following strong opposition from their parents to their marriage, they allegedly ran away from Kanpur. A missing complaint was registered by their family members with Kanpur Police on March 7, 2013. They started staying in a rented house in Timki for the past 8-9 months. Investigators are now trying to find out as why Manisha brought her sister’s son Dadu with her. Manisha slit the throats of Sarwar Alam and Dadu and then committed suicide by hanging in their rented house.

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