Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

With 15 men still trapped inside a rathole mine in coal- and limestone-rich Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills on the 17th day and the rescue teams only managing to find three helmets, the families of the unfortunate miners appear to have given up the hope of seeing them alive. Three of the trapped miners are from Bhangnamari village in lower Assam’s Chirang district bordering Bhutan. The families of all three believe they are dead by now and want the bodies to be retrieved and brought back home.

Abdul Mian, father of Md. Chaher Islam, 33, who is among the three youth trapped, worries are about his son’s family. Chaher has three children — daughters Morjina and Mafsina, aged five and four, respectively, and son Sajidul, 9. “We are daily wagers. Who will look after his three children and wife (Sajeda)? She has already lost both her parents. I don’t know how I’ll take care of them,” Abdul breaks down as he says.

READ | From the jaws of death: Survivor from Meghalaya mine narrates his account

“Chaher himself is to be blamed for what has happened. After passing 7th standard, I enrolled him into a madrasa. He studied for five years and dropped out. Had he continued for one more year, he would have become a moulavi,” he laments. A day before the mishap, Chaher had called up his elder brother Shah Alom Sheikh.

“He would have never gone to Meghalaya and risked his life had he not suffered losses in his bamboo business. He used to sell bamboos and was doing brisk business. He befriended a man from outside our village who, too, was in the same business. This man took bamboos worth `4 lakh from the villagers on credit, making my brother the guarantor. Months passed by but he didn’t show up to pay the loan. My brother was under tremendous pressure to repay the money to the villagers. So, he went to Meghalaya to work as a miner because the daily wages are Rs 1,500,” Shah Alom says.

Chaher’s mother Mostofun Bibi, 55, hasn’t eaten properly since she heard of the tragedy. “I pray to Allah to send him back home,” she says. Her husband is not so optimistic. “Over two weeks have passed. He cannot be alive. I have accepted that. I want the body of my son. I urge the Meghalaya and Assam governments to offer financial assistance to my family, otherwise, we will starve,” says a grief-stricken Abdul.

Korim Hussain, who had worked as a coal miner in Meghalaya for two years, says it is a risky job as there are no safety measures in place. “If something happens down there in the pit or the tunnel, there is no way to detect it,” he says. Abhijan Khatun, too, fears the worst for her husband Amir Hussain. With two daughters aged 10 and seven and a two-year-old son to fend for and her husband unable to send any money back home, she doesn’t know how to sustain.

Amir’s father and elder brother have failed to help or support her in any way. “For the past few days, the locals have provided us with food. But how long can they do it? If we don’t get any financial help from the government, I and my children will have no option but to commit suicide,” says Abhijan.

Amir had last visited home a month before the accident. “Before leaving, he said he would work there for about a week and then go elsewhere. Two weeks have elapsed since the mishap. How can he be alive? I ’ve lost hope,” Abhijan bemoans.

Solibur Rahman, too, believes there’s no way his son Monirul Islam, 20, still survives. Monirul is the second of Solibur’s three sons. The eldest, Manik Ali, has also been a coal miner for eight years. Solibur, too, worked in coal mines in Meghalaya for 20 years till 2003. “I know how dangerous it is. There is so much water in the mine…he (Monirul) can’t be alive. He died possibly due to lack of oxygen,” the grieving father says. If the state government had the will, it could have retrieved the bodies, he says.

“The Meghalaya government must help all the victims financially,” Manik, 26, insists. He says he will never work in the coal mines again. “I am not going back. I will look to do something else in Assam.”

It is the lure of money that draws the poor Muslim villagers of Assam and Meghalaya’s Garo Hills to the coal mines.The village is in shock and grief. Every time a stranger visits, they feel he is a government officer who has come to deliver the tragic news to the families.

From stone factories to coal pits

Scores of youth from village Bhangnamari had gone to work in stone-crushing factories in Haryana, only to fall prey to tuberculosis. “At least 50 youth from our village, who worked in the stone factories died of TB. Now, the youth prefer to work in the coal mines due to higher wages. Most villagers do not have land. So, despite the risks, they work in mines,” says Manik Ali