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,...

Umred farmer held for making hoax bomb call to Mumbai’s Mantralaya

Nagpur Rural police held a farmer from Umred tehsil for making a hoax call to Mumbai’s Mantralaya building on Sunday afternoon. The farmer made the phone call to highlight his plea of not getting compensation for his agricultural land acquired by Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) in 1997.
A police official informed that the phone call was received at the Disaster Management Control Room set up in the Mantralaya building to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic at 12.40 pm. The farmer told the officials that a bomb was placed in the Mantralaya.  Mumbai police personnel along with Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) teams rushed to the Mantralaya. The bomb squads checked the area and found nothing. The officials understood that it was a hoax. The investigating agencies then started searching for the caller and noticed that the call was made from Nagpur. Nagpur Rural Police went on alert mode and a farmer was detained. He confessed for making the call and said that for a long time, he was worried about the compensation of the acquired land. But no one was listening to his plea. He made this call to draw attention of the government and the administration, a police official claimed.  
The farmer is identified as Sagar Kashinath Mandhre (40), a resident of Makardhokda village in Umred tehsil. Mandhre had seven acres of land near his village. Some part of the land he sold to a man while some part was acquired by WCL. He told the police that the WCL had not issued compensation to his acquired land. The official further said that Mandhre was physically handicapped. He wrote several applications to the administration to get the compensation from WCL. However, the administration denied his claim. He used to threaten administration of self-immolation on every Independence Day and Republic Day, the officil said.  

It's a misconception of farmer : District Collector

District Collector Ravindra Thakre told ‘The Hitavada’ that he had examined his claim of compensation while working as Additional Commissioner at Divisional Commissioner’s office. “Its a misconception of Mandhre about not receiving compensation for his land,” said Thakre and cited that the papers of Mandhre were checked properly and measurement of the land was also taken.

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...