| 2010-09-25 | Class 4 boy falls from school building, critical
A class 4 boy fell from the second floor of his Kalyan school building and suffered multiple fractures on Thursday. The boy is still critical in the ICU at Hiranandani Hospital, Powai. ?On Thursday afternoon, during recess, our security guards saw Manish Nathani trying to climb on to the parapet,
losing his balance and falling from the second floor of the school building,? said Preculius Peter, principal of St Thomas School and Church.
The teachers rushed Manish Nathani to Mira Hospital in Ulhasnagar, but as his condition was serious, the doctors advised his parents to shift him to a super-specialty hospital.
?As the incident took place on the school premises, we will bear the medical expenses of the boy,? the principal added.
The school authorities also informed the police about the incident.
?Investigations are on. But only when the boy is stable and can speak, we will know what exactly happened,? Inspector Subhash Patil of the Mahatma Phule police station.
The boy?s father, a businessman from Ulhasnagar, is in state of shock and could not talk to the media. | | 2010-09-24 | NCP to toast 10-year run at 10:10 am on 10/10/10
Call it Sharad Pawar?s ?Dus ka dum? or simply the number ?10? which has a special significance for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The party symbol is a tricolour with a clock in the centre showing the time 10:10. To mark its 10-year successful run, the party has decided to inaugurate a training camp at Ulhasnagar at 10:10 am on October 10, 2010 (10/10/10).
Founded by the Maratha strongman 10 years ago on June 10, 1999, the NCP has decided to launch a special drive to hone the organisational skills of its party workers at district level camps.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar
When asked about the significance of number 10, NCP State Unit General Secretary Dr Gajanan Desai said, ?It?s just a coincidence and we have finalised all the modalities to inaugurate the camp at 10.10 am. Senior party leaders have been invited for the inaugural camp.?
The camp, scheduled to be held in Ulhasnagar will have workers from Thane rural, Navi Mumbai, Mira Bhayander, Bhiwandi, Ulhasnagar, Vasai-Virar and Kalyan-Dombivali.
It is interesting to note that Pawar is a known atheist. The 70-year-old does not believe in mahurats or performing poojas and abhisheks. However, Pawar recently made a sojourn to the Ganesh temple at Ganpatipule in Ratnagiri and his family deity in Satara.
Some NCP workers said that the party?s training camp at Sindhudurg was originally scheduled from October 3.
However, it was postponed after some NCP men from Konkan refused to attend it since it was in pitra-paksha - a fortnight known as an inauspicious period.
Although Dr Desai refused to accept that it was postponed due to the pitra-paksha period, he confirmed that the request had come from the Konkan party workers. |  | | 2010-09-24 | Ganesh idol falls as truck gets stuck in big potho
As the civic body failed to repair roads in Kalyan even after it stopped pouring, it was Lord Ganesh and his devotees who have had to bear the brunt.
On Thursday, a 10-feet-high Ganesh idol from Ulhasnagar that was on its way to a Kalyan ghat for visarjan fell on the road and broke into pieces when the truck carrying the idol tilted after getting stuck into one of the potholes on the road.
The incident took place at around 9 am when residents of camp no. 3 in Ulhasnagar were taking the idol to Kalyan for visarjan. The vehicle was moving through a pothole-riddled Kalyan Badlapur road at that time.
?We tried holding the idol as tightly as we could. But before we could do anything, the vehicle went into another pothole,? said one of the devotees.
The idol fell on the road and it?s pieces were strewn all over. Fearing that the situation might get volatile, police immediately sprung into action.
First, the police surrounded the fallen idol to keep devotees from finding the extent of damage caused to the idol. Second, a crane was called to put the idol back on another truck.
Then, they urged the devotees, especially youngsters, to calm down and insisted that it was only an accident. The idol, or what was left of it, was put on another truck and taken to the visarjan site.
?It was a close call. We did everything possible to ensure that things did not get out of hand,? said Subhash Patil, senior inspector of Mahatma Phule Police Station. It was only after the incident that the civic officials filled the potholes on the road to avoid more such incidents.
When Mumbai Mirror contacted RK Sonawane, commissioner of Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation, he said, ?I have not been informed about the incident. If this is true, I regret it.
We had started work on filling potholes on the entire 400-km stretch under our jurisdiction, but rains did not stop in time for us to complete repairs.?
| | 2010-09-22 | Jobless youths reunite 3-yr-old with parents
Five friends, all unemployed, have become heroes in their area in Ulhasnagar. While their new-found fame will fade away in a few days, they will forever be hailed by the parents of a three-year-old boy, who slipped out of his house, and lost his way, around 7 pm on Monday.
The five - Vishal Jadhav, Ramdas Mudliar, Rohit Gajre, Sandeep Kamble and Munna Singh - all aged between 22 and 25, spotted the boy, Marshal Mudliar, crying in a lane in Subhash Nagar, around 7.30 pm on Monday.
Realising that the boy had separated from his parents, the five decided to put to good use the plenty of time they had on hand, and started search-the-parents operation.
Jadhav said, “We cajoled the boy into saying something. He kept crying and mumbling, and we were clueless. Suddenly, Ramdas picked up a few words and realised they were spoken in Tamil.”
Three-year-old Marshal with his mother, Sherlin, at Central Police Station
Mudliar said target number one was to somehow get the boy to stop crying. “I figured out that he was crying out for his mother. He was shocked, cried even harder when asked where he lived. That question, I feel, scared him even more.”
The men bought the boy an ice-cream, which pacified him. Thinking he got separated from his parents in one of the Ganpati pandals, they began scouting the pandals.
After hours of search, the five went to the Central Police Station, and told the cops about the kid.
At the police station, they saw a woman sobbing, pleading the cops to find her baby. “We realised maybe, here is the mother, and put the boy in front of her. The joy on her face at that moment, we don’t think, can ever be described,” said Singh.
The mother, Sherlyn Mudliar, could not control her tears, this time, coming out of happiness. “I will forever remain grateful to these five honest men. Had they not spotted my child, who knows what would have happened of him,” she said.
The boy’s father, Prabhudas, completed the police formalities and took the boy home, around 12 am. The young men are basking, not so much in glory, but following a good deed. “We did what any responsible citizen would do,” said Gajre, “It was some experience, roaming around with a child, looking for his parents.” |  | | 2010-09-20 | CWC wants to solve orphanage boy?s lost-and-found
The Gopal mystery has State officials and the Child Welfare Committee members in a tizzy. After being rescued from the Shahpur orphanage along with 17 children on August 23, eight-year-old Gopal was sheltered at a government welfare home in Ulhasnagar.
Officials say Gopal cannot walk
Early on September 14, he went missing from the welfare home. The HC, which is hearing a suo motu PIL in the matter, pulled up the State for Gopal?s disappearance. Three days later he was spotted at Dombivali Railway Station by a district probation officer, Renuka Chaudhari.
Gopal was found well-fed and bathed, his hair massaged with oil. He was also wearing a new T-shirt.
Questions being raised are: Mentally-challenged Gopal can barely walk, he is also mute. There is no way he could have run away from the Ulhasnagar shelter. How did he disappear? Also, for someone who cannot even clean himself, how was he found bathed after being away for three days, wearing a new T-shirt? Was he kidnapped?
S R Jadhav, superintendent of the Ulhasnagar home, said, ?The boy?s disappearance, and reappearance, are baffling. He cannot do anything on his own. He was found at the station in good, clean condition. Any boy with such mental and physical condition cannot manage that.?
The Child Welfare Committee officials have expressed their reservations in a report sent to the government. The report said, ?Gopal is not capable of walking, let alone running. It is essential that his disappearance is thoroughly investigated.?
Shinde, child development officer, Thane district, said, ?Our officers, and staff from the Ulhasnagar welfare home, are looking into it. .?
?Parents? turn up to claim the child
There was high drama at the Ulhasnagar welfare home on Saturday, when a couple turned up to claim Bablu, one of the children rescued from the Shahpur orphanage on August 23. Saying Bablu?s real name was Abdul and he was their son, the couple showed the welfare home authorities a copy of a missing person complaint filed with Govandi police. Bablu had gone missing from their Govandi home on February 4 last year, the couple said.
The welfare home superintendent, S R Jadhav, said, ?The couple argued with the staff for over an hour. We told them to submit all the documents proving Bablu was their son, before the Child Welfare Committee.? |  | | 2010-09-18 | Alert relief worker finds missing orphanage boy
Woman carrying a copy of Mumbai Mirror recognises Gopal at Dombivali station, calls out his name; however, there is still no clarity on how he had disappeared from Ulhasnagar home
Yogesh Sadhwani
The Bombay High Court, which is hearing a suo motu PIL in the Kavdas matter, had on Thursday pulled up the state for Gopal?s sudden disappearance. It had asked the government to trace him within two weeks.
Renuka Chaudhari, who spotted Gopal when she was on her way to work, works with children but had no connection with the Kavdas orphanage case
Santosh Shinde
On Friday morning, at around 9:30 am, Gopal NK (surname ?not known?, as he is registered in official records) was aimlessly loitering at Dombivali railway station when Renuka Chaudhari spotted him as she was on her way to work. Renuka, who works with children but had no connection with the Kavdas case, immediately thought the boy was familiar, and her mind raced back to a Mumbai Mirror article from the previous day about the missing Gopal.
?I was carrying the copy of that paper with me. I immediately took it out from my bag and compared the boy?s face to the image published in the newspaper. I was certain it was him but wanted to confirm so that I wouldn?t end up scaring the boy,? she said.
Renuka went close to him and called out his name, to which he instantly reacted. ?Once I saw that the name registered with him, I was certain. I was delighted that finally the poor boy had been found.?
She took him to the Railway Police and later had him sent back to the welfare home. By afternoon, Gopal was again with his friends, all of whom had lived in a condition of near-starvation at the Kavdas orphanage before being brought to Ulhasnagar on August 23 after an article in Mirror.
Since the mentally challenged Gopal cannot speak, nobody knows where he was for three days and how he had left the home in the early hours of Tuesday. ?He is a very shy person. He is also not very physically active. We were quite shocked when he went missing,? Sanjay Shinde, district child development officer, said.
Gopal had first been found by the cops in 2008 and taken to a Bhiwandi welfare home. After staying there for almost 18 months, he was sent to the Kavdas orphanage meant for the mentally challenged. Of the 24 inmates at Kavdas when he moved there, five died between April and July this year and one was moved, leaving behind 18 children.
When the Mumbai Mirror team first went to the orphanage, Gopal was found locked in one room with four other kids who were within an inch of their lives. He was severely malnourished and had a skin infection. Like most others, he hadn?t been taken to a hospital despite his medical condition. When he saw biscuits with the Mirror team, he pounced on them.
The District Women and Child Welfare Department, both of whom were aware of the situation at the orphanage, did not act until our first report appeared on August 23. While the 13 boys were temporarily shifted to Ulhasnagar welfare home, the girls were sent to Prem Daan in Airoli.
Six of the 13 boys, including Gopal, were critically ill and immediately admitted in the state-run Central Hospital in Ulhasnagar, where they stayed for a fortnight. After recuperating, when Gopal and the others returned to the welfare home, they were given adequate food and treated well for the first time in months.
But the home does not have security and the main gate is never locked, making it easy for strangers to walk in and out. On Tuesday morning at 5 am, soon after the children had woken up, officials discovered Gopal wasn?t in the home. Sources said two unknown men had been seen in the facility around the same time. |  | | 2010-09-01 | Four die in landslide at Ulhasnagar slums
Four persons died in a landslide in Ambedkar Nagar, Ulhasanagar on Monday morning. Authorities said that the incident took place due to heavy showers and loosening of soil. The area where the incident occurred has several illegal shanties
The incident took place at around 5 am. Eye witness said that they heard a loud thud. “When we stepped out, we saw that a major portion of a retaining wall and houses on top of it had collapsed,” said Bharat Yadav, a resident.
Locals clear rubble and help the victim’s kin collect their belongings
The wall and soil fell on an adjoining shanty in which four persons were sleeping.
The persons were identified as Dhara Yadav, Vinod Yadav. Santosh and Abhishek. The four used to work in a jeans manufacturing unit in the vicinity.
Interestingly, it took the fire brigade and police, a good two hours to reach the spot.
The four bodies were dragged out of the rubble by the locals. “We made several calls to the police and fire department but in vain.
Till the agencies could come we devided to take matters in our hands and start the rescue work,” said a local.
Another one explained that locals caught hold of whatever they could to clear the rubble.
“We were hoping that the men would be alive. But since we did not have the right equipment, it took us quite some time to get to where the men were buried,” said another resident.
Ashok Rankhambe, commissioner of Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation, confirmed that the houses in the area were illegal. “We are investigating the matter and very soon will be able to come to a conclusion.
For now we have made arrangements to relocate families who stay in the landslide affected zone,” he said. |  |
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