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,...
IN A quick action following communal riots in Amravati, the Maharashtra Police headquarters deputed its four experienced Additional Director General (ADG) rank officials in sensitive police ranges and cities across the State to maintain communal harmony. The police ranges are usually headed by Inspector General of Police (IGP) rank official. The ADG rank is one step above the rank of IGP. A top police official said that the decision was taken by the Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey after a brief interaction with top-ranked police officials and Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil. The officials believed that the ADG rank officials would use their expertise of policing in maintaining communal harmony in the sensitive areas, sources said. ADG (Law and Order) Maharashtra Rajinder Singh arrived in Nagpur at 3 pm on Saturday and proceeded to riot-hit Amravati by road in the evening. He will camp there to maintain law and order. Amravati police range covers Amravati, Akola, Buldana,...