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,...
A 40-YEAR-OLD man allegedly killed his wife and two children by stabbing them with a sharp-edged-weapon and then died by suicide at his rented house in Jaripatka area on Tuesday. The man was reportedly depressed over losing a huge amount of money in cricket betting, police officials said. The deceased was identified as Madan Agrawal, his wife Kiran (33), son Rishabh (10) and daughter Toshita alias Tiya (5), all residents of housing board society, near Dayanand Park, Jaripatka. Police are suspecting that the alleged murder-suicide took place in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. “As per preliminary investigations, Madan might have killed his wife first by slitting her throat and later stabbed the children to death,” a senior official said. Soon after, Madan hanged himself from a ceiling fan with a nylon rope, said police. Cops also recovered a big knife from the spot. The deceased man was reportedly involved in cricket betting and had accumulated huge debts after facing l...