Residents await missing mail

Chavan has applied for the job of a peon in a scheduled bank, and has been waiting for a reply. 8220;I hope all the postmen realise the folly of adopting similar practices,8221; he warned. Bhoir has been released on bail.

Also elated over Bhoir8217;s arrest and suspension is Shahanaz Sheikh, a school teacher who was waiting for study notes to aid her in the B Ed exams she was taking. 8220;Since September last year, we stopped receiving mail,8221; she said.

8220;But when I pulled up Bhoir, he retorted, why should I misplace your mail.8221; And the non-arrival of her hall ticket brought Sheikh on the brinkof losing her work of two years. 8220;I had to finally get a duplicate made from my college,8221; she recalled.

Her neighbour, Anant Vavhal, displayed his file of paid telephone bills, but in duplicate. 8220;Every family here will have only duplicate bills from September, as the real bills never arrived,8221; he remarked.

Bhoir8217;s modus operandi was simple. Feigning fatigue, he would ask shop owners or a resident to keep bundles of letters. Revealed Mubarak Ali, a fruit vendor, in whose sheds the bundles were found, 8220;Saying he had to lug the bundles back and forth, Bhoir requested me to keep the bundles for him. I was merely being helpful.8221; Bhoir thus left 12 bundles in Ali8217;s shed.

Bhoir has since confessed that he similarly dumped some bundles in a shop near Balaji juice centre. 8220;All the bundles have been seized and rerouted to the delivery post office,8221; said the Thane city police.

Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Thane Central, S V Narayankar, informed, 8220;Bhoir was a surplus departmental delivery agentfrom Lenad, Shahpur, and had been temporarily shifted here to offset the manpower shortage.8221; But Bhoir8217;s suspension has sagged morale at the main post office. 8220;Nobody recognises our efforts, but we get punished for the smallest lapse,8221; said a senior postman and an office bearer of the Dakk Karmachari Sangh. 8220;Postmen are overworked since the department is understaffed,8221; he added.

8220;Recruitment has not kept abreast of the mass migration of people to the interiors of Thane and the suburbs.quot; Retorted Narayankar, 8220;The overall traffic through the postal department has fallen as more and more people resort to alternatives like couriers.8221; Postmen are assigned beats on the basis of the number of letters delivered, and a rise in the number of letters doesn8217;t mean an increase in workload,8221; he claimed.