Latest news with #Anil
Time of India
16 hours ago
- Time of India
Joint search operations continue for missing fishermanoff Vettucaud coast
Thiruvananthapuram: A fisherman went missing in the sea after his boat capsized in a strong wave off Vettucaud coast on Friday. Anil A, 35, of Thaivilakam Veedu at Vettucaud, went missing a few metres away from the shore while going to the sea for fishing along with three others. The sea turned turbulent abruptly and there were huge waves. In a strong wave, the boat capsized, and all of them jumped into the sea. Even though the others were able to swim back to the shore, Anil went missing, police said. Soon, Vizhinjam coastal police were alerted, and a joint search was conducted by police, coast guard and marine enforcement. The search continued even on Saturday but Anil could not be traced. "We are searching for him in all the possible spots in the sea with the help of local fishermen," said police. Vizhinjam coastal police registered a case under Section 57 of the Kerala Police Act for a man missing. "He was wearing a brown shirt when he went missing and the rescued fishermen were admitted to the medical college hospital for necessary medical care. Since the flow in the sea is towards the south, the search will be focused in southern areas on Sunday," added police.
Time of India
2 days ago
- General
- Time of India
Air India tragedy: A widower's heartbreaking final goodbye on banks of Narmada; lost son, daughter-in-law in crash
'They were my everything,' he said of the couple in an interview. 'They were my support.' By - Pragati K B and Mujib Mashal Before dawn, in the solitude of his upstairs room, Anil Ambalal Patel prepared to say a last goodbye to the couple who had brought love back into his life. Lingering in his bed, the city around him still asleep, he stared at the two faces on his phone screen: his son, Harshit, and his daughter-in-law, Pooja. He stared and stared, and then moved the phone close to his lips, giving each forehead a kiss. They were gone now, and what little joy he had finally found after years of hardship was gone, too. On this day, he would be with them once more as he scattered their ashes in the Narmada river, at the junction where three streams meet. You Can Also Check: Ahmedabad AQI | Weather in Ahmedabad | Bank Holidays in Ahmedabad | Public Holidays in Ahmedabad Twelve days earlier, Anil, a 60-year-old widower who works for a security company in Ahmedabad, had wished Harshit and Pooja safe travels after they spent two weeks with him on a surprise visit from Britain, where they had moved in search of a better life. And then suddenly they were taken from him, killed along with 239 others when Air India Flight 171 crashed soon after it took off on June 12 and burst into an inferno. 'They were my everything,' he said of the couple in an interview. 'They were my support.' People like the Patels aspire to rise from poverty to the middle class, and their quest is often solitary, as family members travel in search of jobs. For Anil, the deaths of Harshit and Pooja snuffed out a dream of economic mobility and familial comm unity in an instant. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Drink 1 Cup Every Morning – See What Happens A Week Later! Health Insight Undo Whoever has been close to me, God has taken. 'I Loved Uma' Anil never got a proper education beyond basic literacy. He made do by working hard, moving from town to town in search of odd jobs. In 1990, he married Uma, a woman with lucid eyes, a meticulous routine and more education than he had. They raised two children: a daughter, Radhi, and Harshit. In the face of constant dislocation, Uma kept the family together. Her mornings were taken up by prayer, housework and preparing children for school. Her afternoons were dedicated to catching up on the news. 'She never missed reading the day's newspaper,' Anil said. 'She would discuss with me all that she read when I came back in the evening.' The family settled in Ahmedabad, where Anil worked as an auto-rickshaw driver. After an accident that left him unable to drive, he found a job as a security guard and then a security supervisor. Radhi had married already and lived with her husband. Harshit got a job, first at a call centre and then at a ceramics company, to help out. A few years ago, Uma was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The couple scrambled to borrow lakhs of rupees for her treatment, with Anil often skipping work to stay by her side. But it was too late. On the day that turned out to be her last, Uma insisted that she was feeling better and that he return to work. 'I loved Uma a lot,' Anil said. She died at age 48. Father and son chipped away at paying back the loans. They shared a flat, with Anil's elderly mother occasionally visiting them. That was when Pooja came into Anil's life. Harshit met her at work. Harshit was Gujarati and them away. Uma was close to me. God snatched her away. Radhi was close. She married and left. Harshit and Pooja were close. Now they are also gone. Pooja was Marathi, her family hailing from the neighbouring state of Maharashtra. Pooja's parents expected to arrange a marriage for her, so she and Harshit had to carry on a secret romance. They took holidays together, not divulging their plans even to their closest friends. When Pooja needed a pretext to travel, she would give her parents a signed letter from Harshit and say it was from her office manager. Six years ago, the couple went to a marriage registration office and married. Then they flew to Goa and stayed for 12 days. After Pooja's family cooled off, they held a small function to share the news with relatives. Anil's house was no longer lonely after his new daughter-in-law moved in. 'The day Pooja came to our house, she brought peace,' Anil said. Harshit was reserved, but Pooja loved dancing and was always the life of the party. Anil was so enamoured of her, and so grateful for her company, that he came to believe she possessed miraculous healing powers. At one point the baby daughter of Pooja's cousin had an ailment in which water constantly ran from her eyes. 'Pooja ran her hand over her head,' Anil recalled. 'The next day, the baby's eyes stopped watering.' During their time living with Anil, Harshit and Pooja went out for long dinners at rooftop cafes with Harshit's school friend Foram Gohil and her husband, Rajveer Gohil. The couples took so many trips together that their shared WhatsApp group has over 2,000 photos. Foram was afraid of flying but Harshit loved planes, so they compromised when they travelled: one way by air, one by train. But Harshit and Pooja wanted more. Seeing little opportunity for economic advancement, they soon moved out of Anil's home and away from him and their friends. Pooja, by all accounts a stellar student, became their ticket to a middle-class life. She got into an MBA programme at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, and Harshit went along on a spouse visa. The families pooled together loans to pay for it. The couple encouraged Anil to move in with Pooja's parents, whose home in Ahmedabad had a room on the roof that they rented to tenants. Anil joined them downstairs for his meals. In Leicester, Pooja spent her days studying while Harshit picked up delivery gigs. After Pooja graduated, the couple planned to stay in Britain for a couple of years to work and pay off their loans. Last month, they made a surprise trip home to India. They joined the Gohils for dinners that dragged late into the night, like the old days. And they got a fast-track passport for Anil so he could visit them occasionally until they moved back full time. Days of waiting On the day of their flight back, they videocalled Anil from the boarding gate. From their seats, they sent a selfie video to the couples' WhatsApp group. Harshit, who was holding the camera, said, 'Bye-bye, Foram and Rajveer.' Pooja, wearing glasses with large frames, pouted, waved and sent a kiss. When Rajveer heard that the plane had crashed so soon after take-off, he felt sure it was a minor accident and his friends would walk out fine. 'When we find them, we will take their passports and slap them so hard they will forget about taking any more flights,' he remembered his wife telling him. He called Anil, who climbed down from his upstairs room to watch the flames on TV with Pooja's parents. Within hours, hopes dimmed. There was only one survivor, in Seat 11A; his escape, a miracle. The rest of the passengers were declared dead. For the next five days, Anil waited numbly at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital while the authorities conducted DNA testing to identify bodies. He and Pooja's father, Ashok Vamanrao Mate, gave samples of their blood for DNA testing. Outside the heavily guarded morgue, hundreds of grieving family members fluctuated between horror and disbelief, even as some clung vainly to hope. One man had walked out of the wreckage — just like that. Was it so unreasonable to wish for miracles still? On the third day after the crash, Anil received a phone call that Harshit's body had been identified. Pooja's still had not. He resolved to stay until he could take both of them home. He understood the enormity of the task that was underway, but was losing patience fast. As he waited in the heat and rain, Anil often sank into himself, his large frame slouched and lost. Then he would pick himself up again, dragging himself to check in with the authorities. Though he was accompanied by relatives on most days, he seemed to find little peace, repeating to strangers that his wife had died of breast cancer and that he had no one left. That he was alone now. His solitude was not merely physical. Many in Anil's extended family had ascended to the middle class and no longer had to travel to find work. Frequent dislocation meant his life centred on tighter circles — his immediate family and a small number of friends who understood the hardship and uncertainty he had faced. 'Whoever has been close to me, God has taken them away,' Anil said one day, in tears. 'Uma was close to me. God snatched her away. Radhi was close. She married and left. Harshit and Pooja were close. Now they are also gone.' Anil did not want to eat, so his close friend Rajesh Vaghela made sure he visited the food truck set up by volunteers. 'Pooja's parents are already sick, and in the house,' he said. 'If he also falls sick, who will take care of everything?' On the fifth day, Pooja's body was finally identified. Her father returned for the first time since submitting his DNA sample. He and his wife had both been bedridden with shock. Anil's daughter, Radhi, came with her husband. The Gohils came, too. The group had to stop at various desks to receive the postmortem report, to accept the death certificate. Govt officials recorded each transaction on video. At one stop, the parents were given a consent form saying they could choose to be notified if more remains were found. Anil broke down when Vaghela read the form to him. 'No, please,' he said. 'Just give us what you have. Put us out of this misery. This is enough.' The family was then allowed into the room where the remains were kept. Anil had brought photographs of Pooja and Harshit, and they were pasted on the closed coffins. As officials took photographs, Anil tearfully hugged and kissed the coffins. A police van led the way for the two ambulances that carried the bodies home. About 100 people gathered near the house to see them before they were cremated. Pooja's mother, Chanda, fainted when she saw her daughter's coffin. Later, at the crematory, the ashes were brought out and handed to Anil — first Harshit's, then Pooja's. Pointing to the containers, he said: 'They have left me only this.' The banks of the Narmada The city was just waking up as Anil left home with the ashes. The final Hindu rites would be on the banks of the Narmada, where the ashes of Anil's wife, mother and father had once been scattered. During the three-hour taxi ride to the river, Anil, who had shaved his head as part of an earlier funeral ritual, kept the bag of ashes close to his chest. It poured all morning. After some initial prayers inside a small temple, the family made their way down the slope to the river. The skies above were dark gray, the water muddy. The priest recited a prayer, and Anil's son-in-law poured the ashes out of their clay urn into the river. Anil, his head bent, brought his folded hands to his face for a gentle prayer before walking back. During a five-hour ceremony at a temple, the priest asked for names — Harshit's mother's name, her mother's name and so on. 'They are sending him to three generations of our ancestors,' said Anil's brother, Rohit, a retired school principal. The final prayers were said. The mounds of rice and the neat arrangements of marigolds, traditional parts of Hindu funerals, were dismantled and lapped into buckets. Anil gently sobbed in a corner. 'I will miss Pooja a lot,' Anil said, tearing up. 'If she found out I had not eaten or had not come home in time, she would call me to inquire after me.' In the days since the loss, Anil's routine has not changed. But its loneliness feels more permanent. After brushing his teeth over the rooftop sink each morning, he still goes downstairs to have breakfast with Pooja's parents. Most evenings, he gets home from work by 8pm and joins Pooja's parents for dinner. He finishes the night by watching a movie on his phone, a habit he started after his wife died. 'I fall asleep watching it,' he said. As compensation for their losses, Air India has given about Rs 25 lakh to each family affected by the crash and promised another Rs 1 crore. Anil is still thinking about what he will do with his share of the money. Perhaps buy a small flat near his daughter. He is certain of this much: He will start an education fund for Pooja's 6-year-old niece, who was born the year Harshit and Pooja married. 'So she can get her education,' Anil said. 'And when she grows up, she can have a complete life.'
The Hindu
3 days ago
- The Hindu
Delhi court holds 4 guilty of contempt, makes them stand with their hands up for the day
A Delhi court held four persons guilty of wasting its time and directed them to stand with their hands up for the entire day as punishment. Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Saurabh Goyal of the Dwarka Courts passed the order on July 15 after pronouncing the four guilty of contempt. The matter pertains to an FIR registered in 2018 on the complaint by a man named Harkesh Jain against Anil, Ram Kumar, Anand, Kuldeep, Rakesh and Upasana Sehrawat, whom he accused of attempting to grab his property and issuing death threats. The accused were booked and summoned for offences under Section 441 (criminal trespass), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (criminal intent) of the IPC. The court was informed that two of the accused — Anil and Ram Kumar — had died during the proceedings. In the last hearing on May 6, the remaining accused were directed to furnish their bail bonds on July 15. When the accused failed to furnish their bail bonds in time, the court said, 'Despite waiting and calling the matter twice from 10.00 a.m. till 11.40 a.m., the bail bonds were not furnished by the accused persons. For wasting the time of the court, which is in contempt of the order duly promulgated on the last date of hearing, the accused persons are hereby held guilty for contempt of court proceedings ... They are directed to stand in the court till the rising of this court with their hands straight in the air.' The court posted the matter for further hearing on August 11.
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Two shootings in 12 hours: Multiple teams deployed to trace absconding suspects
Police teams in Hyderabad and Medak have intensified efforts to track down the suspects behind two separate shootings that occurred within a span of 12 hours. In both cases, investigators are probing rivalries and financial disputes as potential motives. In the Medak incident, Congress leader Marelli Anil was shot dead on the night of July 14 while returning to his village in a luxury SUV. The attack occurred near Kulcharam around 9 p.m. According to the police, Anil was intercepted and ambushed by assailants in two cars. Four bullets were found in his body and four empty shells recovered from the scene. Investigators confirmed the use of .32 calibre pistol in the attack. Police suspect that the killing was linked to a real estate mediation that turned hostile. Anil is said to have maintained a network of ten men who operated through a WhatsApp group titled 'Janata Garage'. The group handled recoveries of money and financial disputes on commission. According to senior officers, Anil's involvement in illegal financial dealings and multiple rivalries could have led to his murder. Twelve special teams have been formed by Medak police to trace the attackers. CCTV footage confirmed that Anil's SUV was flanked by two other cars. The attackers, believed to be four to five in number, have been identified and are currently on the run. In the Malakpet shooting incident in Hyderabad, police are still searching for four suspects involved in the murder of State Council member Chandu Naik. Naik was gunned down during his morning walk in Shalivahana Nagar Park, Malakpet, on the morning of July 15. Malakpet police, working with the Hyderabad Commissioner's Task Force, have deployed nine teams to locate the suspects. Officials believe all four are within city limits and have switched off their phones to avoid detection. 'Nine teams consisting of law and order staff and Task Force officers are working to trace the accused. Their mobile phones have been off since the morning of the incident, and all exit routes are being monitored,' an officer from Malakpet police station said. Police recovered five shells at the scene, including three fired rounds and two that had misfired, indicating that a crude or country-made firearm may have been used. The vehicle used in the attack has been seized, and forensic analysis is ongoing. Police in both districts have stated that further leads are being developed, and arrests are expected soon.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Political, financial angles emerge in Congress leader's murder probe
Hyderabad: The murder of a local Congress leader, Marelli Anil, at Kulcharam in Medak district is taking complex turns as investigators uncover a trail of financial disputes, high-profile connections, and possible contract killings. Special teams from Medak police, probing the murder, have found that Anil—who had been reportedly actively involved in financial settlements and loan recovery work over the past two years—had made several enemies in the process. Among the angles being probed is a dispute involving the family of an Andhra Pradesh legislator, with whom Anil is believed to have had a fall-out. Police revealed that Anil was working on behalf of a Hyderabad-based businessman, assisting in recovering loans disbursed to various individuals. One such high-stakes case involved the grandson of a prominent AP politician, who had borrowed ₹50 lakh from the businessman. You Can Also Check: Hyderabad AQI | Weather in Hyderabad | Bank Holidays in Hyderabad | Public Holidays in Hyderabad 'Anil managed to recover ₹39 lakh from the grandson, but there was an ongoing dispute over the remaining ₹11 lakh,' a police investigator said. 'We are investigating whether this conflict had any link to Anil's murder,' he said. Further complicating the case is the Mercedes Benz in which Anil was travelling at the time of his death. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Police found that the car belonged to a 70-plus paralysed person from Gachibowli, who allegedly owed ₹50 lakh to the same businessman. 'As no repayment was made, Anil took the Benz car as collateral, effectively using it to pressure the debtor,' a senior officer said. Police sources said Anil came from a poor financial background. 'His parents are small farmers. He recently owned an i10 car and remained unmarried. He had taken to doing settlements and money recovery work, which seems to have earned him powerful adversaries,' the official added. Investigators suspect that contract killers may have been hired by someone holding a deep grudge against Anil. 'We are verifying all possible motives, including professional enmity and financial disputes,' the official said. Medak district superintendent of police DV Srinivasa Rao said special teams are actively scanning CCTV footage from various locations and questioning suspects in connection with the case. 'The investigation is progressing. We will reveal further details once the case is solved,' the SP added.
