SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, April 22: Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sandip Singh after visiting the subsidence spot today said that there is no sign of any person being trapped in the illegal mining incident in Chanch Victoria coal mines of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) under Chirkunda police station of the district.
The DC, who inspected the incident spot on Friday afternoon along with senior administrative, police and coal company officers, said that a comprehensive search and rescue operation was conducted in the mines area near the road subsidence place. Two teams of six people had been pressed in for a rescue operation and after 45 minutes of search, they did not find any trace of illegal mining subsidence.
Around 60 feet approach road of Dumrijor village caved in on Thursday morning. The villagers had alleged that it happened due to illegal mining in closed mines of BCCL Chanch Victoria Area. Over 60 to70 people of Bengal were allegedly engaged in illegal mining when the incident occurred. It was being said that they might have been trapped in subsidence.
“Local police officers have been asked to probe the incident. If lapses are found from part of BCCL and Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL), action would be taken against them,” said the DC.
He also directed Colliery area general manager AK Dutta to lodge an FIR against people involved in illegal mining after taking information from local villagers about them.
Earlier, in the morning, Nirsa BJP MLA Aparna Sengupta stopped the coal company from filling the village road at a subsidence spot saying that people might have been trapped in it. However, when the coal company officer informed her that the rescue team had gone inside the mines and found no sign of anyone being trapped, she allowed them to fill up the damaged road.
Besides the DC and the MLA, Chanch Victoria Colliery general manager AK Dutta Dhanbad SDM Prem Kumar Tiwari, Nirsa SDPO Pitamber Singh Kherwar, circle officer (CO) Amrita Kumari, Block Development Officer Binod Karmkar inspected the incident spot.
