People's Democracy

Gopi Kant Baksi

AFTER the recovery of cableman Pritam Sy, miner Salim Ansari was rescued alive from the death trap in Bagdihi Colliery. (See People’s Democracy, February 11 for details of the mine disaster.) Pritam Singh is under treatment in Central Hospital, Dhanbad now. Chhotu Mia’s dead body was recovered later, after 190 hours of the Bagdihi colliery massacre. No trace of the other entrapped miners and the manager and assistant manager could be found. The number of persons entrapped was claimed to be 30 by the management though an increase in the number cannot be ruled out.

Situated in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand state, the Bagdihi colliery is a unit of Area X of the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd, a subsidiary of the Coal India Ltd. The colliery was inundated on February 2, at about 12 noon, when the workers were working underground in the general shift and first shift. The workers working at different levels of the seventh seam of the mine were entrapped by the huge amount of water that rushed in from the now abandoned, adjacent Jairampur colliery of the same Area X of the BCCL. Hearing the deadly sound due to the in-rushing water, those working above the third level of the seventh seam (stratum of coal layer) rushed out of the mine. But none from any other level of the seventh seam could come out.

It is apprehended that the inundation was caused by a rupture of the barrier between the two (Bagdihi and Jairampur) collieries. The rupture reveals criminal negligence on part of the management and non-compliance with the mine statutes. Under Section 127 of the Coal Mine Regulation 1957, the barrier needs to be at least of 60 metres (200 feet) in width. But it was found to be around 15 metres only. The DGMS (Director General of Mines Safety), under the ministry of labour, government of India, is statutorily responsible for periodic inspection of the mines and for ensuring an observance of the relevant statutes. But in this case officers of the DGMS office also committed criminal negligence. The fact that a safety week was observed immediately before the ghastly disaster in Bagdihi, reveals the utterly callous attitude of both the BCCL management and the DGMS towards the safety aspects.

Though the dead body of Pritam Singh was recovered on February 5, at 7 a m, by the rescue team of Ramswarup Paswan, senior overman of the adjacent colliery, the body was surprisingly kept underground for 17 hours, till midnight, before it was sent for post mortem to the Central Hospital, Dhanbad. The rescue work has been very slow and thousands of people are agitated against the management’s policy to go slow. Jharkhand chief minister Babulal Marandi had to cut short his programme and flee from Bagdihi colliery as he did not dare face the agitated mob and members of the victims’ families.

One thing has been established beyond doubt. The workers as well as the colliery manager A K Upadhyaya and assistant manager P Singh, who also fell victim to the disaster, apprehended a danger of inundation due to vigorous percolation of water into the said mine, and informed the higher management accordingly. But the latter did not pay any heed. In fact, Upadhyaya’s wife even told the press and the police that her husband had continuously referred to the possible danger and had expressed his helplessness due to the negligent attitude of the higher management. The management has hidden and destroyed relevant statutory documents like the manager’s, assistant manager’s and the overman’s diaries and the mining register which could help in finding out the actual facts.

Coordination between the management, the DGMS and the rescue team was found seriously lacking during the rescue period. The 11 divers, who were brought from Bombay and Vizag for the job of recovery, alleged that they were being supplied wrong plans and maps. They also alleged that the management was deliberately delaying their deployment. A news, published on February 8 on the Internet, said the Navy smelt cover-up efforts in the Bagdihi mine disaster. A senior officer of Indian Navy said that the BCCL had invited a team of navy divers only to appease the local people and as a face-wash, and also to have some time for a cover-up. This reveals the high-level criminal conspiracy on part of the management.

In the meantime, victim Arvind Kumar’s wife Manju Devi attempted suicide by consuming poison while victim Dasarath Bhuiyan’s wife Phuliya Devi suffered a massive heart attack.

The Bagdihi colliery is a strong base of the CITU. Almost all the workers entrapped were CITU members. Two camps are functioning round the clock at the Bagdihi and Jiarampur collieries. Local comrades, including S K Bakshi and Gopi Kant Baksi, president and secretary respectively of the Jharkhand state committee of CITU, were camping on the spot. Ram Sumer Paswan, Nandlal Paswan, Suresh Paswan, Suresh Prasad Gupta, Santosh Rajak and others kept monitoring the two camps run by the CITU, while G P Goswami and Subodh Majhi assessed the safety aspects of the disaster.

Basudev Acharya, MP, visited the spot on February 3 night and pressed the management for issuance of fund and material relief for the members of the victims’ families and for accelerating the process of drawing the water out. On February 4, Haradhan Roy, former MP and general secretary of the Colliery Mazdoor Sabha of India (CITU), visited the spot and demanded that an FIR be lodged against the management and the DGMS. Bratin Sengupta, MP, visited the spot on February 5. J S Mazumdar, secretary of the CPI(M)’s Jharkhand state organising committee, and Mihir Chowdhary, general secretary of the CITU’s Jharkhand state committee, also visited the spot and met the victims’ family members.

The CITU observed a programme in all the collieries of the BCCL to protest the delay in rescue and recovery operations, as well as utter negligence of the state and central governments and the management. The members of the families of the victim workers and officers are on an indefinite hunger strike, demanding their people alive or dead.

Apprehension is growing in the area regarding the management’s possible conspiracy to perish the bodies underground.