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By:

Abhijit Joshi

31 August 2024 at 10:09:24 am

Nasrapur’s Lost Child

The rape and murder of a four-year-old girl has left Maharashtra grieving and demanding accountability from a system that failed to stop a known offender. She was only four years old. She was spending her summer holidays at her grandmother’s house in Nasrapur, a quiet village in the Bhor area of Pune district. She liked playing outside. On the afternoon of May 1, 2026, a 65-year-old man from the same village walked up to her and said he would show her a calf. She smiled and followed him. She...

Nasrapur’s Lost Child

The rape and murder of a four-year-old girl has left Maharashtra grieving and demanding accountability from a system that failed to stop a known offender. She was only four years old. She was spending her summer holidays at her grandmother’s house in Nasrapur, a quiet village in the Bhor area of Pune district. She liked playing outside. On the afternoon of May 1, 2026, a 65-year-old man from the same village walked up to her and said he would show her a calf. She smiled and followed him. She never came back. What happened next in a cattle shed nearby is too painful to describe in full. The man — identified by police as Bhimrao Prabhakar Kamble — sexually assaulted the little girl, killed her, and hid her body under a pile of cow dung. Repeat Offender CCTV footage from a camera outside a neighbour’s house recorded Kamble walking away with the child. By the time the child was found, it was too late. The doctors said she had already passed away. Kamble was found near a river in the village. He said he had done nothing. But the camera had told the truth. The police arrested him the same evening. He was sent to police custody by a Pune court. Here is something deeply troubling about this case. Bhimrao Kamble was not a first-time offender. He was accused of molestation in 1998. A court let him go. In 2015, he was accused again — this time of harming a young girl. He was let go again. In 2019, a court acquitted him in a case involving his own niece. Each time he walked free, he came back to live in the same village. Nobody was keeping a close eye on him. No one warned the village. And the little girl’s family had no way of knowing that this man, their neighbour, had harmed children before. When the news spread across Nasrapur and then across Maharashtra, people were heartbroken — and furious. Hundreds of villagers came out on the streets. They blocked the busy Pune-Satara Highway (also part of the Pune-Bengaluru National Highway) for hours through the night. On May 2, a complete shutdown (bandh) was called in Nasrapur. All shops and schools remained closed. The next day, a bandh was observed across the Bhor and Rajgad tehsils as well. Protestors carried signs and slogans demanding the death penalty for the accused. They wanted justice — and they wanted it fast. The little girl’s last rites were held late at night, after midnight, under police protection. The child’s father, a Hindu priest, recorded a video message that went around on social media. In it, he said he did not want to meet any politician. He had only one request: that the accused be given the death penalty through a fair trial. He said no politician should visit their home until justice was given to his daughter. Swift Justice Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called the crime deeply saddening and said it was “highly shameful.” He announced that the case would be tried in a fast-track court, which means the trial will move much faster than a normal court case. He also said a special public prosecutor — a lawyer hired just for this case by the government — would be appointed to make sure the accused gets the strongest punishment possible. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar said, as a mother, she could feel the pain of the victim’s family. She promised the government would not rest until the family got justice. BJP legislator Chitra Wagh said the incident had shaken society and that the fight for justice must continue till the end. Opposition leaders were sharp in their criticism of the government. NCP-SP MP Supriya Sule called the crime “inhuman.” She questioned how a man who had committed similar crimes twice before was ever given bail. She also pointed out that the Maharashtra Women’s Commission does not currently have a chairperson, asking: “Where are we supposed to go to ask for justice?” She demanded the case be heard in a fast-track court and that the accused be given the death penalty. Slanging Match Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar targeted the Home Ministry and said the “fear of the law has vanished” under the present government. He called for a complete overhaul of how children are kept safe. NCP-SP’s Rohit Pawar also questioned how a known repeat offender was free to roam around the village without any police watch. The National Commission for Women took up the case on its own and asked the government to file a chargesheet quickly under the POCSO Act. The Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights also stepped in, asking the government to appoint a special public prosecutor and move the case to a fasttrack court. The Pune rural police have set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of six officers, including two women police officers. Keeping children safe is not just a job for the police. It is the responsibility of every adult in a community — teachers, neighbours, grandparents, shop owners. If any adult behaves strangely around children, that should be reported immediately. Children themselves must know that if any grown-up makes them feel scared or uncomfortable, they should run to a trusted adult and tell them. There is no shame in speaking up. Speaking up can save a life. The police are working to ensure Bhimrao Kamble faces the full weight of the law. That is necessary. But justice for this little girl also means making sure no child in Nasrapur — or anywhere in Maharashtra or India — ever has to go through what she went through. She deserved to grow up. She deserved to go to school, make friends, and see many more calves in many more summers. (The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)

Lingua Pragmatica

Updated: Mar 20, 2025

As Southern leaders like M.K. Stalin rage against Hindi, Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu offers a model of pragmatism over parochialism.

Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh

Amid the cacophony of opposition in southern states to Hindi, Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken a markedly pragmatic stance by remarking recently in the state Assembly that there was no harm in learning other languages. Hindi, Naidu noted, was useful for communication across India, particularly in political and commercial hubs like Delhi. His remarks, though avoiding explicit mention of the NEP, were widely seen as an endorsement of multilingualism and a rebuke to the linguistic chauvinism that has gripped parts of the South.


Few issues in India stir political passions quite like language. It is not merely a means of communication but a marker of identity, a relic of colonial resistance, and a source of political mobilization. In the southern states, where anti-Hindi sentiment has long been entrenched, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its three-language formula have reignited old tensions. No state embodies this defiance more than Tamil Nadu, where the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M.K. Stalin has framed the policy as an assault on its linguistic autonomy.


Naidu’s words, welcomed by his ally and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, mark a sharp contrast with the DMK’s position. Tamil Nadu’s hostility towards Hindi dates back to the 1930s, when C. Rajagopalachari’s attempt to introduce it in schools met with fierce resistance. The anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s cemented the DMK’s ideological stance, with its first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, famously warning that Hindi imposition could push Tamil Nadu towards secession.


The question, however, is whether this rigid opposition serves Tamil Nadu’s interests. While Stalin, with an eye to the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, has been relentlessly portraying Hindi as a threat to his state’s regional identity, Naidu, a partner of the BJP-led Centre, is framing it as a tool for economic mobility. His argument is not that Hindi should replace Telugu or English but that it offers a competitive advantage.


The economic case for multilingualism is compelling. Indians who speak multiple languages tend to have better job prospects, higher earnings and greater geographic mobility. Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu-speaking diaspora is a case in point. Telugus make up a significant proportion of Indian-origin professionals in the United States, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia as Naidu pointed out, hinting that this success story was built not on linguistic rigidity but on adaptability.


In a country where inter-state migration is rising and where Hindi remains the most widely spoken language, refusing to learn it amounts to self-imposed isolation. Tamil Nadu’s approach, by contrast, risks limiting its youth. The DMK government has refused to implement the three-language policy, keeping schools strictly bilingual with Tamil and English. Its justification that Hindi is not necessary for global success could be true in a narrow sense but ignores the domestic context. If Tamil filmmakers can dub their movies into Hindi to expand their audience, why should Tamil students be denied access to the language that could open more doors for them within India?


The DMK has accused successive central governments, particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of pushing Hindi at the expense of regional languages. Yet, rejecting Hindi outright is an overcorrection. The reality is that Hindi is an important language in India’s economic and political landscape. Naidu’s position, one of accommodation rather than confrontation, offers a middle ground that other Southern leaders would do well to consider.


Some states already recognize this. Karnataka, despite its own history of linguistic pride, has allowed Hindi to be taught as an optional language. Kerala, whose migrants work in Hindi-speaking regions and the Gulf, has been less hostile to Hindi education. Naidu’s model, balancing regional identity with practical necessity, offers a way forward. Languages should be embraced, not politicized. Southern leaders would do well to listen to him.

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