Victims of Ilegal Mining have not to be Rescued
(Please publish immidiately to save the trapped thirty five miners as media underplays this accident.)
Palash Biswas
contact: Palash Biswas, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, kolkata-700110

A mine closed since 1967 is waterlogged for seven full days. It is said that thirty to thirty five illegal miners are trapped in the deathtrap. The illegal mine Gangtuli is situated in an island of river Damodar, inunder Neturia police station in purulia district of West Bengal.The villagers of the Khera Kyari village of Jharkhand are waiting for their near and dear ones for the last four days. Labourers from this village had gone to work in an illegal mine in Puralia district of West Bengal on August 1, but have not yet returned. According to information, on that day, water entered these mines from the overflowing Damodar river, leaving these labourers trapped inside the mine.
The Parliament is in the session full of activities and so is the west Bengal Assembly.
We may recall the operation Mrityunjay to rescue the five year lad of hariyana, Prince, thanks to the round the clock live telecast by each and every TV channel. Live sms and opinion polls compelled the state government, the centre, the President and prime minister of India as well as the great sympathetic indians involved in the army rescue operation continued for more than fourty hours. Which ultimately was successful without doubt.
Illegal mining thrives in the Ranigunj-Asansol coal belt in West Bengal, with the local mafia using the Santhal tribal people from Jharkhand as cheap labour.
Shame on whosoever it may concern as no serious attempt was made to rescue the unlucky poor miners of the flooded illegal mine and seven full days passed. Army personeel, two officers and four soldiers from the Adra Cant visited the spot on Sunday, the sixth day, and declined to help the rescue operation. The DM Mr Debbrata Bandopadhyay was too late to seek the help from the army. CPIM MP Basudev Acharya also visited the mine on saturday, the fifth day and could not do much. He met the Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadev Battachary on Monday, the seventh day. Official sources say that any survival is near impossible.
The Chief minister told the press in the writers that his government is watching the incident and the development. he acknowledged the continuity of illegal mining in coal fields. Bhattachary told that the government is worried amidst a newsbreak of another accident in an illegal minie in Asansol. The mine is situated in Rasoolpur jungle under Barabani PC area. The mine subsided last night as several people were working underground. no rescue operation started. In Gangtuli, the problem is very complex as the waterlevel of Damodar is thretening. You can not just pump out the water unless the flow of water is stopped. Thus, the all India Bouri samaj has appealed the President of India to direct the DVC to stop the flow of Damodar. But the Barabani mine is not waterlogged. and here again, as it happened for three decades, there is no rescue operation to save the miners of the illegal mine. Two thousand square mile area is filled with killer methen gas and no initiative taken to rescue the surviving local people. Only on Monday, ECl workers under the leadership of ECL officer R Chattopadhyay visited the mine and it is said that they tried to launch a rescue operation and very soon, they gave up. DiIG police, Medinipur M Ram Babu visted the place on monday as the CM was addressing the scribes in the Writers. The police and the ECL officials maintain that no survey report or map of the illegal mine is available. Hence, the divers also can not help.
Most of the illegal mining is done in closed or abandoned mines. Sometimes it is done in operational collieries of ECL and even on private property, where workers are commissioned to dig until they hit coal. There are around 1,380 abandoned pits and inclines of ECL in the region.
Often the entire process of illegal mining, starting from employing workers to transporting processed coal from bhattas, is controlled by a group of people, each one involved in a particular activity. For example, a labour contractor employs men and women to work in a particular mine-pit controlled by another person, who in turn sells the coal to the owner of a bhatta. Sometimes one person controls all the operations.
IT is practically a parallel industry, the only difference being that nobody is responsible for anybody else. Most of the accidents and deaths go unreported and are quickly covered up.
Meanwhile , the coal minister of India, ex Robinhood of Jharkhand movement, Shibu Soren visited the spot two days ago and denied any possibility of rescue operation, However, a vital rumour was spread in between that the minister has declared Rs two lac as compensation for each dead miner. Mind you, the affected familes are never used to come out as the history of illegal mining in the coalfields continue even afer three dacades of nationalisation of coal mines. In 1981 , there was a similar case in Giridih. Some three hundred people were said to be working underground in the abandoned coal mine adjoing giridih Muffassil as the mine subesided. No body could survive the subsidence and there was no rescue operation. At that time the jharkhand movement was in full swing under the leadership of dhanbad MP AK Roy, Dumka MP Shibu Soren and MLA Vinod bihari Mahato. The CPI giridih was on agitation. But it could not help the victims. The writer of these lines himself search dozens villages to locte the families involved. A grim silence was everywhere. Nobody wept.
Again it happened in Chapapur during 1982. The illegal mine situated in Nirsa under dhanbad district, susided. The police came into action and three dead bodies were recovered. Some more were believed to be underneath. But no family came forward.
This time, in the magical effect of the ministerial announcement rumour, villagers of Kherkyari lodged a FIR in adjoining Chirkunda police station of Jharkhand that ten individuals are entrapped in the deathtrap. According to the OC Chirkunda the names of the lost miners as follows: Ujjwal Mandal, Deepak Bouri, Subodh Gope, Dhiren Mandal, Alok Mandal, Upen Mandal, Kartik Gope, Manik Bouri, Jaga Gope And Dashrath Gope.
Madahv Gope of Kherkyari is waiting on the riverbank as waiting Govardhan Bouri, whose son Madhu Bouri is entrapped in the mine.
The villagers claim that several people from Mihijam and Madhupur came to work in the closed mine and they, too, are entrapped. madhupur and Mihijam are in Santhal Pargana, the stronghold of Shibu Soren.
Illegal mining in the coal fields situated on the West Bengal-Jharkhand borders has been on for years, thanks to the active coal mafias in the region. Several mines in the Ranigunj-Asansol coal belt in West Bengal, was closed by the Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) long ago, and extraction of coal from there was declared illegal. But mining operations still go on in full swing by courtesy of the coal mafia. The ECL authorities, though aware of the plunder, seem to have turned a blind eye to it, and there is no one else to challenge this illegal operation. So is the case in BCCL , mostly operative in Jharkhand. This illegal mining is the flow of income in the industrial belt of Bengal where most of the small industries are closed.
Directrorate of Coal MInes safety, DGMS has its head quarter in Dhanbad which deals with mines safety in all coal fields in India. Mining is hazardous and the modernization and latest technology including opencast mining could not help mines safety much. While The DGMSwas in full strength, it could not cope with its mammoth task. Now the work force curtailed and with so many deficits, DGMS is no expected to do much. Somehow , it has become irrelevent. Faulty survey and maps, criminal negligence of duty on part of officials have been the causes of watrlogging in mines. The best example may be quoted as Chasnala.
Declaring unsafe mines abandoned stops the DGMSto take any action .But the safety of the mines have to be the responsiblity of coal companies along with the ministery. Not to mention the law and order problems, the direct liablity of the state government.Both these points are overlooked and the coal mafia goes happy go round under the umbrella of political protection.There is no record of how many people go inside to work and how many come out at the end of the day. For sums ranging between Rs.20 and Rs.40 a day, these people, mostly belonging to the Santhal tribe, from neighbouring Jharkhand, risk their lives for the underworld coal traffickers. Accidents and deaths are common in these mines, and even claiming the body of a dead relative is fraught with danger because that would amount to exposing the illegal operations. But the income goes into the pockets of mafia dons, officials and political leaders. Whereas the workers risk their life to earn livelihood and are always in insafety.The labourers work under the constant fear of getting caught. At the sight of a stranger they disappear into one of the innumerable ratholes. They fear not only the police but also the goons of rivals in the mafia.
So no serious attempt is made to stop illegal mining.
Palash Biswas
Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata-700110, India.
Phone: o33-25659551(r)