A door creaks open

This village in Maharashtra never had doors,till a few robberies changed that.

Sixty-year-old Dagdu Shete slides open his door and breaks a tradition. Here in Shanu Shingnapur,a village that has traditionally been without doors,thats a bold,new act.

Shani Shingnapur,spread across three km and about 35 km from Ahmednagar city,is dotted with about 300-odd houses,all with door frames but no doors. But this is beginning to change as Shete and a few others took the radical step of installing doors last week. Thats after six thefts were registered at the Sonai police station since last year. Last month,Shete was robbed of the Rs 73,000 that he got from his sugarcane harvest. He registered an FIR at the police station and placed an order for a sliding iron door for Rs 2,000. Shete has not heard from the police after registering the complaint. It is surprising that such an incident happened in this village, he says.

Shetes two brothers Ranganath and Ramnath,who stay in the same compound,too have placed orders for iron doors. Wife Chandrabaga says she is yet to get used to living in a house with a door but the recent theft leaves them with little option.

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Shani Shingnapur has a Shani temple that draws thousands of devotees through the year. The idol is installed on an open platform and villagers have always believed they would be safe with Lord Shani presiding over them. But then the thefts happenedlast year,four thefts were registered in the police station while this year,besides Shete,Narendra Lokhande registered an FIR saying he had lost Rs 50,000 from his house. Besides,there were reports of cellphones and bags being stolen.

Thats when some in the village,like Shete,decided to install doors. It is essential with rising instances of thefts,especially since our village sees lakhs of people coming in during the darshan, says Sayaram Bandhare,the police patil of the village. The temple sees an annual turnover of nearly Rs 15 crore.

There are enough people coming into our village and there is no machinery to monitor them, says Bandhare. The village is yet to get a police station,the nearest is in Sonai,a neighbouring village.

The culprits will be caught, says assistant police inspector Salim Sheikh,who has just taken over at the Sonai police station. Sheikh says he has heard of people in Shani Shingnapur installing grill doors in their homes. I have seen a few houses with these metallic doors, he says.

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Even the village panchayat office has a grill door and Bhausaheb Lokhande,the gram sevak,says their village will step up the vigil. We are planning to ask for additional police force as well as have local patrol teams at night to man the area, says Lokhande.

UCO Bank,which opened its branch in the village in January,has a nondescript door,no grill doors. While the documents are kept under lock and key,the deposits are taken to other Sonai every evening.

It is very different type of arrangement here, says U Sheikh,branch manager of the bank which has 300 account holders.