Kartik Lokhande's blog

By Kartik Lokhande    On March 16, 2015, Patru Durge had travelled more than 1,000 kilometres from his native village Damrancha in Aheri tehsil of Maoist-affected district of Gadchiroli, to the State capital of Mumbai. He visited the offices of Chief Minister, Finance and Planning Minister, and Water Resources Minister, and submitted copies of a memorandum seeking a lift irrigation scheme in his village. And, on April 19, 2015, the anti-development Maoists killed him.   Patru Durge or Patru Durgam was Deputy Sarpanch of Damrancha Gram Panchayat. An active pro-development Dalit leader, Patru had passed Class IV but he commanded immense respect of people of Damrancha and Bhangarampetha. For, he was the man with vision for development of the area, and bringing in positive changes in the life of people of the remote and Maoist-affected area. Damrancha is located on the banks of rivers Bandiya and Indravati. However, it is cut off from the rest of the world as far as ...

By Kartik Lokhande  Three girl students of Government Ashram School at Laheri village in Maoist-affected Bhamragad tehsil of Gadchiroli district, who are missing for about 25 days now, are suspected to have been ‘taken away’ by the Left Wing Extremists. A fact-finding team from Nagpur has come to this conclusion after visiting the school and villages. As was published by ‘The Hitavada’ earlier, these three girl students of Government Ashram School at Laheri village had gone missing since January 3. The girls are aged 16, 15, and 14 years and hail from Malampaddur, Hindewada, and Keyar villages respectively. One of the parents had lodged a missing person’s complaint with Laheri Sub Police Station after which offence under Sections 364, 365, and 366 of the Indian Penal Code was registered against unidentified ‘kidnappers’. Police teams were dispatched to trace these girls. The members of the fact-finding team from Nagpur comprising Prof Arvind Sovani, Prof Rashmi Para...