Assam mine deaths: As more bodies turn up, a political war of words

Superintendent of Police Mayank Kumar said the arrested men were operators of this particular mine. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had first said that the mine “prima facie appears to be an illegal one”. On Friday night, he said that the mine had been run by the state government’s Assam Mineral Development Corporation (AMDC) and had been abandoned 12 years ago.

“It was not an illegal mine but an abandoned one,” he said, adding that the mining operation during which the incident took place was being conducted illegally. Dima Hasao has widespread coal, limestone and granite quarrying activities, and the coal reserves of Umrangso have been leased by the AMDC.

Opposition parties questioned how illegal mining activities could be conducted there without the knowledge of local authorities. Assam Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi Saturday wrote to the Prime Minister demanding the constitution of an SIT to probe the incident and the persistence of rathole mining despite being banned by the National Green Tribunal in 2014.

“The SIT should not only look into the illegal operation of the mine and identify those responsible for this tragedy, but it must also address the broader issues at play. This includes the failure to enforce the NGT’s ban on rathole mining, and the complicity of local authorities – including the district administration and district police – who have enabled these illegal activities to persist despite repeated accidents and warnings. The SIT should also examine safety standards and working conditions in these mines, which are consistently ignored, leading to deadly incidents. The investigation should expand its scope to identify and map out other illegal mining sites across Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao and Upper Assam, where these activities continue unabated,” Gogoi wrote.

The Congress has also alleged the involvement of Debolal Gorlosa, the Chief Executive Member of the Dima Hasao Autonomous Council from the BJP, and his wife in illegal mining activities in the region. Dima Hasao district is a tribal majority district administered through provisions under the 6^th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, with an autonomous council with limited powers. Gorlosa heads this autonomous council. Two members of the district Congress unit filed the police complaint.

SP Mayank Kumar said, “A case has already been registered in connection with this particular incident in which two people have been arrested. An FIR has not been registered against this particular complaint, and it is currently in the enquiry stage.”

Gorlosa called the allegations a “political attack.” “The allegations are by Congress people, they are trying to target me and the BJP. The court had banned rathole mining so many years ago, if someone has gone and entered the mine illegally, what is the government’s fault in this? The enquiry is happening, we are not stopping it,” he told The Indian Express.

When Sarma was asked on Friday night about allegations of Gorlosa’s involvement, he said, “It has not come up in the investigation. This is a human tragedy, we should not politicise it.”

Rescue ops

The first body – that of 38-year-old Ganga Bahadur Shrestha – was recovered from the mine on Tuesday morning. The next three days of rescue operations had been fruitless, with the water level inside the mine refusing to subside despite continuous efforts.

However, on Saturday, the water level finally lowered from 30 metres to 12 metres as five pumps were pressed into service. Rescuers from the National Disaster Response Force, the Army and the Navy recovered the bodies of three more miners during the course of the day, who have been identified as Lijen Magar (27), Khusi Mohan Rai (57) and Sarat Goyary (37).

Officials said the reduction in the water levels carried out bodies that were trapped in the low ratholes branching out of the central pit of the 310-feet deep mine.