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PUNE, OCTOBER 4, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com
MAHA POLLS 2014 Your vote matters As political parties present election manifestos for the state assembly elections on October 15, offering new promises and programmes, here’s the backlog that’s bothering Puneites the most. See Spotlight on P7
What Happened to past promises?
RAHUL RAUT
Pune urgently needs mass public transport to reduce worsening traffic congestion
Electrocuted youth was a helpful soul BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh.shelke Aniruddha Rajandekar
Atish Shinde’s family
Coming to the aid of injured motorists was a habit with 32-year-old Atish Shinde who lost his life last week while trying to help a young woman stranded with her two-wheeler in a puddle of rainwater at Khadki. Both Atish and the young lady, Poonam Hrishikesh Joshi (33) died on the spot due to electrocution from a snapped overhead power cable that had fallen in the muddy water. A residing of Wakdewadi slum and employed as a driver, Atish had often helped people injured in road accidents, said his mother Shobha. “The police told us how
he helped others,” she said. Shocked and grief-stricken by his death while trying to help a stranger, Atish’s neighbours paid him tributes and put up a board, recounting his acts of kindness, near the Bhaiyyawadi bus stop, close to the Wakdewadi slum where he lived. “He worked as a temporary driver and did not have a permanent job,” his wife Megha (24) said. Atish was returning home after duty when the incident took place on September 25. His son Mayuresh had turned two just two days ago. When Atish saw the young woman struggling with her vehicle in the waterlogged patch on Range Hills Road, he waded in to push the vehicle out of the puddle. This was when both of them got electrocuted. Even then, he was warning others not to enter the water, police said. A heavy downpour had caused the branch of a tree to snap an overhead cable that fell in the muddy puddle. The Shinde family hails from a hamlet in Bhor taluka and migrated to Pune in 1994 in search of work. Atish’s father used to work as a porter) at Market Yard, and his mother was employed in a balwadi (kindergarten). The family stays in a 10x15 sq ft tin sheet hut. “He was the only earning member in the family and wanted to build a pucca house,” said Megha, who married Atish three years ago. The family blames the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) for the badlymaintained overhead cable that snapped and caused Atish’s untimely death. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com