Shahdol’s poisonous coal mine! Dead bodies of 3 youths found again, 7 dead bodies recovered so far

coal mine (file photo)

of Madhya Pradesh Shahdol District Over the years, the number of people who lost their lives due to poisonous gas in a closed underground coal mine of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) is increasing. Bodies of three more youths were found on Saturday evening. A day before this, on Friday, bodies of four youths who had entered the mine with the intention of theft were recovered, who had died due to leakage of poisonous gas there. With this, bodies of seven youths have been recovered from this mine in two days.

In this case, police have registered a case against SECL management under section 304-A of IPC and detailed investigation is going on. This mine is located in Dhanpuri police station area, about 28 km from Shahdol district headquarters, and these seven youths had entered this mine on January 26 from two different mouths. Additional Superintendent of Police Mukesh told that the missing report of Rohit Kol, resident of Cheap House of Amalai police station area, Rajesh Mishra and Manoj Burman of Chachai police station area, had been lodged with the police. He said that on January 27, the dead bodies of four youths were found in the closed coal mine, so such doubts were being expressed that these three youths had not even gone inside the mine.

Rescue team and police administration reached the spot

Vaish told that after this today the rescue team of Hasdeo area and the local coal mine and the police administration reached the spot. He said that the coal mine team started the rescue operation since morning. He said that the team first made a big door by breaking the mouth and after that when the team went inside, a wall was seen there, then after that that wall was also broken.

The bodies of four youths were found on the morning of January 27.

The official said that after hard work for about five hours, the rescue team of SECL finally got success and three bodies were taken out from this mine at around 7.30 pm on Saturday evening. Vaish said, with this, the death toll in the closed coal mine has gone up to seven. The dead bodies of four youths were found on the morning of 27 January.

Guard was not arranged for security

He told that a special investigation team has been formed to investigate the case related to the death of four persons in this underground coal mine on Friday. Vaish said that proper care was not taken by the SECL Budhar Group management in closing the mouth of the closed mine and no arrangement of guards was made for the leakage of poisonous gas and public information and warning boards etc. of the closed mine.

He said that on the night of January 26, four persons had entered the closed underground mine to extract scrap iron. He said that due to the spread of poisonous gas inside the underground mine, all of them came under the grip of poisonous gas and Raj Mahto (20), Hazari Kol (30), Rahul Kol (23) and Kapil Vishwakarma (21) died. While another of his companions was standing outside the tunnel, who later informed the police about this. All four were residents of Dhanpuri. On the other hand, Superintendent of Police of Shahdol district, Kumar Prateek, has removed Station Incharge Dhanpuri Inspector Ratnambar Shukla and Beat Incharge Assistant Sub-Inspector Ghulam Hussain from Thana Dhanpuri and sent them to the police line. (with language input)