The drive to death was the stage actor’s last act

Nagwade said the family had met them on Saturday evening and left for their native village on Sunday morning.

Highway Police personnel at the spot on the bridge at Ambeghar, from where the car fell into the Neera river.

The man who was driving the Alto car that crashed into the river was quite popular in his neighbourhood. Pravin Dattaram Bhosale (29) was a stage actor whom some of them had seen performing in live shows.

“He had acted in several plays. I knew this because every time he was slated to perform he used to invite me to watch his acting skills. In fact, I went for a couple of plays. And was surprised to find a man who most of the time kept to himself so animatedly reeling out his dialogues,” says J D Nagwade, who stays in Lila Vihar where the Bhosales lived.

Nagwade said the family had met them on Saturday evening and left for their native village on Sunday morning. “I spoke to Pravin’s father. He was in a cheerful mood. We discussed the construction of the boundary wall for our residential society. He told me as soon as he returns from his native village, we would take up construction work…” said Nagwade.

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Another neighbour Lalchand Lunkad said every day Pravin’s father and he used to spend time together at the small open ground near the gates of the housing society. “He used to come down with his grandson Shaurya and I used to bring my grandchild. When the kids played, we used to discuss issues including national politics and local issues. It was Shaurya who used to repeatedly draw his grandfather’s attention…but Bhosale never complained. He happily rushed forth and catered to demands of his grandchild,” said Lunkad. The neighbours said the family has always been on good terms with every one. “Both Dattaram Bhosale and his son Pravin were always polite and friendly with us,” said Lunkad.

As soon as news of the accident spread, local residents thronged Lila Vihar society of Mohannagar. AAP leader Maruti Bhapkar, Pravin’s younger brother and other neighbours rushed to the accident spot. The bodies were brought to their Mohannagar house around 4.30 pm.

Pravin’s mother and sister who were at home were not informed about the tragedy till the bodies reached home.

When the bodies were being brought out of the ambulance, there was a stunned silence, but as Shaurya’s body was being brought out, there were loud shrieks as the entire neighbourhood broke down. The bodies were cremated in the evening.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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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