SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 2: Officials’ claim of cable criminals holed up in Bhagylakshmi colliery mines has turned out to be a damp squib.
A joint team of police and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) came out empty-handed after a two and half hours’ operation in Bhagyalakshmi underground mines of Mugma area of Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL), around 48 km away from Dhanbad district headquarters on Tuesday afternoon.
A joint team of 35 police and CISF personnel entered the mines at 1 p.m. today for the search of the cable thieves. After a two and half hours search, they came out from mines empty-handed at 3.30 pm. This operation was carried out under the supervision of Nirsa Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Pitamber Singh, Rawat and ECL Mugma area General Manager, Prabhat Kumar.
Kumardhubi colliery manager, KP Singh, told the media that this joint team will enter the mines again to search for criminals in the evening. “We will continue the search operation,” he said.
The joint team of CISF and police had been surrounding the Bhagyalakshmi underground mines of ECL since Sunday night after a gang of cable thieves entered inside it. When the CISF challenged the criminals, they shot at them and lobbed grenades in which one CISF personnel got injured. CISF had claimed that around 20 to 25 criminals had entered the mines to steal cable. After security forces’ action, they were holed up in the mines.
When the criminals did not come out even after 38 hours, senior police officers and Mugma colliery officers reached the spot and sent a joint team for the search in the afternoon. Colliery officials had also joined the team.
