Maharashtra: Man sets himself ablaze in front of DM's office, dies

NASHIK: A 35-year-old man from Karjat taluka of Ahmednagar district died in a hospital in Pune on Thursday after he set himself ablaze in front of the district collectorate.
The deceased, Tausif Hasim Shaikh, was unhappy with the district administration and the local civic body in Karjat for not paying heed to his pleas of removing encroachment from a piece of land belonging to a private trust in Karjat.
Initially, the residents refused to accept the body but after intervention of senior district and police officials, the last rites were performed on Friday night.
Soon after the Shaikh’s death, the administration swung into action and removed encroachments from the land of the trust. A district administration officer said that Shaikh reached the district collectorate on a motorbike on Thursday afternoon.
“He then poured some inflammable liquid that he was carrying with him and set himself on fire at 3:30pm,” he said.
The district collectorate houses offices of the district collector and other senior district officials. The people present on the collectorate premises somehow doused the flames and rushed Shaikh to a government hospital in Ahmednagar. He had sustained over 70% burn injuries.
As his condition was deteriorating, the authorities shifted him to Sassoon Hospital in Pune where he passed away in the night.
Confirming the incident, Ahmednagar district collector Rahul Dwivedi told TOI that the administration was in touch with Shaikh’s family after he brought the encroachment issue to the their notice.
“Shaikh was pressing for removing the encroachments on the trust land in Karjat. However, due to certain festivals and the recently concluded civic elections we could not remove the encroachment as we did not have adequate police force,” Dwivedi said.
Shaikh had also submitted a memorandum addressed to Dwivedi to the local government officials in Karjat.
“I did not get the memorandum. The local officials were convincing him not to take any extreme step as the administration would deal with the encroachment issue as soon as possible. But the victim did not listen to them,” the district collector said.
Another district administration official said the encroachments on the trust land have been there for over three decades. “The trust should have acted against the encroachments. But it did nothing and hence the victim demanded the district administration’s intervention,” he said.