SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Feb 2: District police administration has set up a Special Investigating Team (SIT) under Superintendent of Police (Rural) Reeshma Ramesan to probe the incident in Gopinathpur’s abandoned mines of Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL) under Nirsa Police station in which bodies of five villagers were retrieved from debris.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sanjiv Kumar said that incident occurred only in Gopinathpur mines of ECL where five bodies were retrieved from debris in rescue operation. All five bodies (four women and a male) were identified.
SSP Sanjiv Kumar rejected that mining incident occurred simultaneously in three mines during illegal mining.
“The police found no sign of roof collapse incidents in Kapasara mines of ECL and Chanch Victoria Dahibari coal project of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL). So the incident during illegal mining happened only in closed open cast mines (OCP) of Gopinathpur colliery,” he said.
As per allegation of local leaders of political parties, the coal roof falling incident also occurred in Kapasara colliery of ECL and Dahibari project of BCCL and many villagers are still trapped under the debris in the mines. Hundreds of villagers allegedly were mining in all trio mines of ECL and BCCL when the tragedy occurred.
Rattled by the incident, SSP Sanjiv Kumar has also sought a mines safety audit report of ECL from the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) for technical study so that steps could be initiated for checking such type of illegal mining tragedies in near future in the region.
