Drunks light up parts of dumping ground ‘for fun’

Though the police has filed an FIR against three unknown people who are allegedly involved in lighting the fire at the Deonar dump yard, the site is still vulnerable to more such incidents due to lack of guards.
Just a day after the Maharashtra chief minister declared an investigation into allegations of sabotage, locals have been found lighting a fire at the site just for ‘fun’. This raises doubts as to whether the police will be able to stop such activities.

On Sunday, when The Asian Age visited the dump yard, smoke was still billowing from the site for the fourth consecutive day. But, there were a few places where locals had lit fires at a few places in the site. When asked for the reason for doing so, a local who was drinking with a group of his friends at the site, replied, “just for fun”.
“Locals often light fires at the site just for fun. They get drunk and often burn waste material. And as the site comprises combustible materials, it quickly catches fire, which gets spread like the current instance,” said Sudesh, a local resident.
The site does not have any police officers or guards even when the involvement of locals is suspected. This has also become a great cause for concern among residents.
“This happens almost twice a week when the local drunkards light fire in the garbage and smoke starts billowing. There is no watch on the site,” said Fatima Qureshi, the mother of a child who studies in a corporation school just opposite the site. “Due to lack of security, we also get scared to send my daughter to school as the local goons and thugs drink at the site,” she added.
When asked, a senior police officer from Shivaji Nagar police station, Balasaheb Jadhav, said, “Around 10-12 guards were allocated there on Sunday to keep an eye.”