Skip to main content

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,...

Crime Branch arrest Guddu Bhatia in Bobby Sardar murder case

Crime Branch have arrested an automobile dealer, Guddu Bhatia (35), in the murder case of transporter Bhupendra Singh Manjit Singh Makan alias Bobby Sardar (46). “The Innova car in which Bobby Sardar was strangled to death was provided by Bhatia,” said police. 
A police officer informed that role of Bhatia came to fore during interrogation of four arrested accused. Bhatia was member of the rival gang that killed Bobby Sardar. As Little Sardar, Manjeet Wade and others decided to eliminate Bobby, Bhatia also joined them and assured to arrange the vehicle. The Innova car was registered in the name of Bhatia. Accused Hani Chandok took the vehicle from his garage on April 25, he told the police. 
CCTV image of the Innova car led to cracking of the murder case. After getting the images, the police had launched searches for a white coloured Innova car with a sentence written in Punjabi language and found it with Bhatia. He initially told the police that the car was sold to Chandok for Rs 10 lakh. Hence, the police had arrested Chandok. Bhatia was arrested when the needle of suspicion pointed towards him during investigation. He was arrested by the police late Thursday night. The police have produced Bhatia and four other accused in the court on Friday and they were remanded to three-days police custody. APP Adv Mrs Borkar represented the state while Adv Sudeep Jaiswal and Adv Atul Rawlani apeared for the accused. 
Bobby left his office on April 25 at around 11.30 pm. The accused took Bobby with them. He was murdered by the accused by strangulating him using a rope in the wee hours of April 26. The accused had threw the body under the bridge near Kathalabodi village in a bid to destroy evidence. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IGP Prasanna : The man who stopped Obama’s convoy

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...

DCP Sunil Kolhe gets IPS cadre

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...

How a mom won fight for justice after 15 years

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...