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This is an archive article published on December 29, 2016

Pune techie murder: Jolted police spring into action, activate non-functional help centre

It has taken the loss of an innocent life for Pune Rural Police to realise the safety concerns faced by people, especially women, in the IT park area.

Anatara Das, antara das murder, pune techie murder, pune girl murder, techie murder, police, pune police, pune police alert, police action, IT Park, Talwade, bengaluru youth arrested, bengaluru youth, murderer arrest, murderer arrested, pune techie murder arrests, techie murder arrest, pune news, india news, indian express news The police help centre at Kanbay Chowk, less than 1,000 feet from the spot.

Less than 1,000 feet from the spot where Antara Das was murdered, in Talawade IT park area, a ‘police help centre’ is located. On Wednesday, its shutters were closed. This has been the case for days, said a woman staffer working in the area. It has taken the loss of an innocent life for Pune Rural Police to realise the safety concerns faced by people, especially women, in the IT park area. Promising to ensure the safety of people working here, personnel from Dehu Road police station said they have activated the help centre — located at Kanbay Chowk — which had been non-functional for months.

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“The help centre will be functional round-the-clock. Three police personnel will be deployed in the day and three in the night,” said Additional Superintendent of Police Rajkumar Shinde. Shinde said they will also set up a Nirbhaya squad to ensure the safety of women working in the area.

The help centre was set up as the nearest police chowky, in Dehu Road, was 4-5 kilometres away, said police
sources.

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According to fruit seller Kailash Chavan, in the last two-three months,”we have seen policemen at the help centre only once in a while.” However, some employees of private firms said they don’t remember the help centre ever being functional. “I can’t recall a single day when I saw police personnel there,” said Anil N.

Local corporator Shantaram Bhalekar, who recently resigned from the NCP, said despite the area being an IT Park, police presence was minimal. “… Had there been proper police presence in the area, the incident could have been averted and an innocent life could have been saved,” he said.

Meanwhile, the spot where the murder took place was shrouded in darkness as the streetlights had apparently been non-functional for months. Bhalekar said it was clear that the assailant took advantage of the dark area to carry out the attack.

When contacted, MSEDCL officials said PCMC was in charge of streetlights in the area. However, PCMC Joint City Engineer Pravin Tupe said the area was under MIDC, but they would take up the issue with MIDC officials.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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