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,...
Crime Branch have arrested two Angadias from Mumbai for their alleged involvement in fraud and extortion case in which gangster Santosh Ambekar has been arrested by City Police as prime accused. The accused have been identified as Ajay Patel, a resident of Malad, Mumbai and Suraj Patel, a resident of Ankleshwar, Gujrat. The team of Crime Branch is expected to reach Nagpur with the accused on Wednesday. The arrest was made under the guidance of Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Nilesh Bharne. An offence under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 384, 386, 506 (b) and 34 of Indian Penal Code was registered against Ambekar and five others on Saturday for duping a businessman of Rs five crore in a property deal and also issuing threats to him for extortion of Rs one crore. Explaining roles of the Angadias, a senior officer said that Suraj Patel had deposited Rs five crore on behalf of businessman Jigar Patel while the money was collected by Ajay Patel. Meanwhile, t...