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,...
Strong police bandobast of around 3,000 police personnel including two companies of State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) would be deployed on the occasion of Holi and Shab-e-Barat on Thursday and Friday. The focus of the police would be on preventing unruly activities, including applying colours forcibly, indecent behaviour with women and illegal consumption of liquor. Commissioner of Police (CP) Amitesh Kumar said that the police deployment would start from Thursday morning. As many as 90 checking points have been identified by the police for fixed police deployment. A total of 10 Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCP) rank officers, 10 Assistant Commissioners of Police (ACPs), 40 Police Inspectors, 208 APIs/PSIs, 1843 police personnel, 190 women police personnel, two companies of State Reserve Police Force, special teams of Crime Branch and Special Branch (SB) will be deployed during the two-day long bandobast, he said. “Damini squad will be deployed for the safety of women and to keep ch...