SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov. 1: A security guard was injured in a grenade attack and cross firing between cable thieves and CISF on Sunday night. The incident took place at Dhanbad’s Kumardhubi based Bhagya Lakshmi underground mines in the Mugma area of Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL) which is around 48 kilometres away from the district headquarters.
According to the police, firing ensued when a joint team of CISF and police surrounded a few cable thieves in the mines at around 11 p.m. Having found themselves surrounded by security forces, the thieves fired and lobbed a grenade on them which injured a security guard. The CISF then fired back on them in retaliation.
The injured security guard has been identified as Abadh Bihari Mahto. His two fingers were blown up in a grenade hurled by the criminals. He was admitted at Sanctoria (West Bengal) hospital of ECL.
Since midnight, the joint force of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and personnel of Chirkunda police station, under which Bhagya Lakshmi mines area falls, have been besieging cable thieves inside the mines.
According to sources, around two dozen cable thieves taking advantage of the dark entered the mines at around 11 p.m. to steal copper cable.
Chirkunda police station officers, Binod Singh and Kumkum Singh, who were camping at the mine’s spot, said that on the information of CISF, the mine’s entrance point has been sealed since night.
“We can’t say how many cable thieves are hiding inside the mines. It is reported that around 20 to 25 thieves have entered there. We are repeatedly appealing to them to surrender but there is no response from inside,” police officials said to the media.
