Skip to main content

A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

By
  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,...
Post a Comment

Road Safety Success in Nagpur: Operation U-Turn prevents 90 road accident deaths

Image
By


By Dheeraj Fartode

DCP Lohit Matani
The Operation U-Turn campaign launched by the Nagpur City Police to reduce road accidents and fatalities has shown encouraging results. The city has recorded a 26 percent reduction in road accident deaths in 2025 so far, helping save 90 lives, said Commissioner of Police (CP) Dr Ravinder Kumar Singal on Monday.In 2024, Nagpur city reported 340 deaths due to road accidents. This figure has come down to 252 deaths in 2025 till December 21. Due to this improvement, Nagpur has secured the first position in the state in reducing road accident fatalities.Comparatively, Palghar district recorded a 20 percent reduction in accident deaths, while Amravati city achieved a 17 percent reduction. In Pune, the police managed to save 55 lives, and in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, accident deaths were reduced by 18. Nagpur stood out by saving the highest number of lives through focused enforcement and preventive measures.Operation U-Turn was implemented in Nagpur from July 10 with the objective of curbing rash driving, drunk driving, and other traffic violations. As part of the drive, 90 traffic checkpoints were set up at various locations across the city. Over the year, action was taken against 5,366 traffic violators, while more than 3,000 vehicles were checked every day.

Black-spots identified 

The police also identified accident-prone locations, known as black spots, and took steps to reduce risks at these points. Safety measures such as barricades, rumble strips, blinkers, and clear warning signboards were installed to alert motorists and slow down traffic. Strict action was also taken against illegally parked private buses, unauthorized food trucks, and heavy vehicles that often create traffic congestion and increase the chances of accidents.Special emphasis was placed on monitoring two-wheeler riders and young drivers. The police conducted regular night checks to prevent overspeeding and drunk driving, which are major causes of fatal accidents in the city.

60 parents booked for underage riding

During the campaign, several cases of minor drivers were detected at checkpoints. The traffic police took strict action and booked the parents for allowing underage children to drive vehicles. So far, 60 parents have been penalised.As part of the action, fines were imposed and the driving licences of these minors have been cancelled until they attain the age of 25, as per legal provisions. The police stated that such strict measures are necessary to ensure road safety and prevent tragic accidents involving minors.Joint CP Navinchandra Reddy and DCP Traffic Lohit Matani appealed to citizens to follow traffic rules, avoid drunk driving and cooperate with the police to further reduce road accidents and save more lives in the future.


Location: Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Srivastava's report one sided, Collector not to write ACRs of Superintendent of Police: DGP

By
By Dheeraj Fartode Maharashtra's Director General of Police (DGP) Pravin Dixit has rejected the report into the spat between Collector and Superintendent of Police in Bhandara, that had stirred hornet’s nest among the Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre in State. Principal Secretary (Revenue) Manu Kumar Srivastava was appointed by State Government to probe the matter and he had submitted the report to Government and made certain recommendations. One of the recommendation which Srivastava made was to delegated powers of writing annual confidential records (ACRs) of SP's to District Collector. This particular recommendation had the IPS cadre seething with anger as they claimed it an unwarranted intrusion on their powers. DGP Pravin Dixit DGP Dixit when contacted by The Hitavada to ascertain his views said he had read the report and found it to be totally one sided. Further he disclosed that the particular recommendation about ACR was also summarily rejected. Dixit said ...
3 comments
Read more

IGP Prasanna : The man who stopped Obama’s convoy

By
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...
10 comments
Read more

UP ATS arrest a doctor from Yavatmal district under anti-conversion law

By
On 10-08-21 Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh police arrested a doctor from Pusad town of Yavatmal district in connectin with a case registered at Gomti Nagar police station under anti-conversion law. It may be mentioned that three persons were arrested by UP ATS from Nagpur and Gadchiroli on July 17 in the same case. The accused person was identified as Dr. Faraz Shah Karamat Shah (27), a resident of Vasant Nagar, Pusad. A police official informed that Faraz was working with Shah Hospital at Pusad with his relatives after completing MBBS course from Government Medical College Akola in 2012. As per the records of Yavatmal police, Faraz was not a member of any organisation. The UP ATS had arrested some persons last month in Delhi and had claimed that a nation-wide racket of religious conversions was busted. The police had recovered a register with details of over 1,000 persons, including their names and addresses, from Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. So...
Post a Comment
Read more