In Assam, a mining death & a woman’s 3-month fight to find husband’s body

On Friday evening, Pranjal’s decomposed body finally reached home. “Though I have been waiting for so long, I still didn’t really think he had died. But I had to believe it today,” she said, speaking to The Indian Express.

The colliery where the 26-year-old’s body was found is part of the North Eastern Coalfields operated by Coal India Limited. Pranjal, according to investigators, had been working as a miner for an illegal set-up since November last year. According to Tinsukia Superintendent of Police Gaurav Abhijit Dilip, prima facie it appears that he died in an accident while working, and those working with him allegedly concealed his body to keep attention away from illegal mining activities. So far, 18 people have been arrested in this case.

According to Urbashi, Pranjal started working at the mines in November, after having been employed at a metal factory. She said the work kept him away from home for 10-15 days at a stretch, after which he would return with his pay, which was around Rs 16,000 depending on the work.

“Since he first began work, he had returned four times. This last time, he left on January 6, but forgot to take his phone. So he called me on January 12 from someone else’s phone to tell me he would be back in two days. But he didn’t return, and no one answered the calls I made to that number,” she said.

She said someone sent by Pranjal’s employers visited her on February 2, and he told her that her husband had gone missing. The next day, she made her way to the local police station to register a police complaint. After repeated visits, an FIR was registered at Margherita police station on February 6 under sections pertaining to death by negligence, criminal conspiracy and theft. In the FIR, she named three people she knew had hired and been in touch with Pranjal.

But the FIR was the beginning of a long wait for Urbashi. With no news of what happened to her husband for another month, she reached Guwahati on March 13 with her son and local activists, to demonstrate at the city’s designated protest site.

It was after her meeting with the DGP that the probe gathered pace. He directed IGP (NER) Jitmol Doley to lead the investigation, and a search was carried out along with the NDRF and SDRF.
SP Dilip said that efforts to find Pranjal’s body had been going on since the FIR. “We looked for around two weeks with Coal India but were not able to find the exact location. In the meantime, we arrested several people who had worked in the same mining set-up. Two days ago, we arrested two more people, who gave us information which helped us find the spot,” he said.

He said the body had been placed “40-50 feet” deep in a tunnel and covered up. “Based on the statements, it seems he died in an accident while working, and there was a cover-up… The area where this work was being carried out was under Coal India but there are illegal activities of rat-hole mining and even open-pit mining in remote parts, forested areas and in disputed areas of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh,” he said.

The case has once again brought under scrutiny illegal mining activities in the region. Last September, three workers died in an illegal rat-hole mine in Tinsukia after inhaling toxic gas. Last week, the Gauhati High Court stated that it is the obligation of the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change along with the state government to ensure that illegal mining activities are not carried out in the state. It also directed that “all illegal mining activities in the area in question are stopped forthwith”, while hearing a set of PILs stating that illegal mining in the Saleki Proposed Reserve Forest Area in Tinsukia district was depleting forest cover in the area.