100 days, and counting

The year was 1959. The walls of Kolkata’s Minerva Theatre echoed with the sound of rushing water. Inside the auditorium, the spectators shuddered as they watched a wall of water flood a mine, sweeping away the workers trapped underground for days. Within seconds, their screams became inaudible. And a voiceover announced the end of the play — Angar (coal in Bengali) — written and directed by actor and playwright Utpal Dutt.

Based on stories of exploitation of India’s coal miners, Angar is remembered as one of Little Theatre Group’s landmark productions. It is also held up as one of the best examples of stage lighting by Tapas Sen. It is said that Sen’s recreation of water entering a coal mine sent shivers down the spine of Kolkata’s theatregoers, thus catapulting Angar into the league of Dutt’s finest works.

Almost 60 years later — and nearly 1,000 kilometres away from Kolkata — 25-year-old Manik Ali from Assam’s Barpeta district has now learned what a flooded mine looks like.

Mine forever: Manik Ali (centre) is yet to come to terms with the untimely loss of his favourite sibling, Manirul. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

The one he saw was not built with cardboard, plywood and adhesive. It was frighteningly real, only about 2 feet wide and located deep in the East Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, at a nondescript place called Ksan. It is a sight that he will never be able to erase from memory.

Exactly 100 days ago, Manirul Islam (20) — Manik’s favourite sibling — found himself trapped in an illegal pit along with 14 other people, after water from the nearby Lytein river breached the walls of the mine. Two bodies have been found so far; 13 people have not been seen since then and are presumed dead. Five miners managed to escape before the mine was flooded.

An officer of the Indian Navy — involved in the rescue operation, which was finally called off on March 2 this year — helped Manik view the inside of the mine on a computer screen.

The grieving brother’s heart skipped a beat when the officer zoomed in on a floating object. What initially looked like a log turned out to be a body, bloated and bruised beyond recognition. Manik still can’t determine if, even for an instant, he was grateful that the miner floating across the blue monitor wasn’t Manirul.

No looking ahead: Manik Islam, father of missing miner Chaher Islam, is now looking after his daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

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Manirul never came home — alive or in a coffin, like his neighbour Amir Hussain (35), to be laid to rest in a tiny patch of land in a dusty village near Sorbhog town, also in Barpeta district. Manik returned to his heartbroken family with his brother’s clothes and Samsung smartphone, recovered from the tiny shack he once shared with his co-workers near the mine he was last seen at.

Dead on arrival: Abdul Salam watches over the grave he built for his son, Amir Hussain. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

“Manirul was a brave lad but dealing with complete darkness inside the mine was emotionally stressful,” Manik said. He had only a head torch to help him see the inside of the shaft. Because of his agility, he was often the first one to be sent into the rat-hole, so named because of the narrowness of the illegal mines. Others would follow suit, forming a pyramid to the top. The miners used hand-held axes to dig coal from the surrounding walls, which was then sent out in baskets or buckets. Being at the bottom of the human ladder, Manirul had the slimmest chance of escape. The five men who managed to escape were near the mouth of the hole.

A casual labourer like many others in a predominantly Muslim village off the state highway near Sorbhog, Manik hasn’t stopped looking through the gallery of images on his brother’s phone. It included, among several selfies of the missing miner, a photo of Amir Hussain’s decomposed body that Manik had shot and saved.

He added a password to the screen, in order to keep this frame away from the eyes of the women in the house — his stepmother, an aunt and two younger sisters — and his youngest brother Zahidul Islam, a Std VIII student. “I keep thinking if my dear Manirul, who was such a handsome fellow, ended up looking like Amir,” he said when BL ink met him at his residence earlier this month. “I just wish we could bring him home and bury him here.”

Among those who landed up at their doorstep were hordes of journalists, some of whom tried to help the grief-stricken family with updates on the rescue efforts. A few even promised to speak to political leaders and legislators on their behalf. Most of them, however, advised the family to prepare themselves for the worst.

Despite the number of journalists who zipped in and out of the village, the news of the miners didn’t dominate discussions and debates on prime-time shows. It remained front-page news for mostly regional newspapers. Even social media’s response to the tragedy was considerably less vocal than what it was during the heroic rescue of 12 schoolboys and their football coach from an inundated cave in Thailand in July last year.

The search operation for the 15 miners in Ksan — five of whom were from Assam and the rest mostly from Meghalaya — was suspended several times because of bad weather and the tricky terrain. The biggest handicap, as reported widely, was the absence of a map of the mine, which hampered dewatering and vehicle operation inside the caves.

Members of the National Disaster Response Force were among the first to reach the spot, along with those from Meghalaya’s State Disaster Management Authority. The Indian Air Force and the Navy joined the mission in end-December. By then, Coal India, in collaboration with Kirloskar Brothers, had sent 18 high-power pumps to the site. Close to 50 lakh litres of water were pumped out by the first week of January, but the Lytein River continued to fill the pit. The rescuers couldn’t enter the shaft, and the bodies could not be retrieved.

Despite a ban ordered by the National Green Tribunal in 2014, rat-hole mining, predominant in Meghalaya, carries on unabated and a powerful mafia continues to sell coal mined from the hills. The Jaintia Coal Miners and Dealers Association puts the number of illegal mines in the East Jaintia Hills alone at over 50,000. The two main concerns behind the ban were the safety of miners and the environmental degradation of the hills and forests of Meghalaya. The discharge from these privately-owned mines also affects the rivers and streams in the state and in neighbouring states such as Assam.

Risk factor: Despite an NGT ban imposed in 2014, rat-hole mining continues unabated in the state of Meghalaya. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

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A cheque for ₹1 lakh, given to the families of those men who were either found dead or remained missing in Ksan, was like a declaration of doom that Manirul’s 60-year-old father, Solibor Rahman, had hoped to avoid. But the broken man didn’t deny that the compensation from the Meghalaya government for his son’s untimely death helped him pay off a part of the sum he had borrowed for the treatment of his first wife — Manirul’s biological mother — more than three years ago. Liver cancer claimed her in less than 12 months from the time it was diagnosed. By then the family had spent a couple of lakhs of rupees at hospitals and diagnostic centres in Goalpara and Guwahati.

The pressure from local moneylenders compelled Manirul, just 17 when his mother died, to leave school and look for work. His father and his elder brother’s earnings — ₹250-300 a day for odd jobs — were barely enough to keep the family going. During lean periods, managing expenses became doubly difficult, pushing Manirul towards high-risk work such as rat-hole mining about three years ago.

“He didn’t like the work... Going down a shaft in the dark, collecting coal and wheeling it back to the top. He said he felt claustrophobic,” said Solibor, seated in a plastic chair in the neat little compound of his village home. But Manirul’s daily wage — ₹900-1,000 for seven-hour shifts that started early in the morning — helped the father pay Zahidul’s school fees, buy rations and set up a tiny provisions store right outside their house.

Most of the biscuits and tea leaves at this shop, in the last 100 days, have been used to feed the scores of visitors from the media and a few like Heera Sarania, an Independent MP from Kokrajhar constituency. Even in the face of tragedy, the family stuck to the traditional Assamese way of greeting guests — offering them paan-tamul (betel leaves and raw areca nut) on a brass plate.

As is common in rural areas, a local agent (also referred to as manager by some) helped the youngster find work. “In every village you have an agent who recruits workers on behalf of the sardar (mine owner, in this case). He took Manirul with him. And now we haven’t seen or heard of him since the fateful day,” Manik said. The family does not know how to contact the man who owns the mines, whom they identify as Moy Hussain from Hazirhat in Assam’s Dhubri district. They claimed his number could not be traced.

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Before Manirul went missing on the morning of December 13, Solibor had two immediate plans.

One was to get his second son’s Aadhaar card done, for which he made copies of his photo ID and age proof and obtained an enrolment form.

The second task — more elaborate and time-consuming of the two — was to raise a house in the same compound. This is where he wanted both Manik and Manirul to live after marriage. “I was planning to get them married on the same day. I wouldn’t have let him return to the mines after that. He should have been home, close to his wife, close to all of us,” said Solibor, pointing to the planks of wood and ply lying in a heap.

The family cannot afford to feed an extra mouth at the moment, which puts a question mark on Manik’s marriage plans. The eldest offspring has two major tasks ahead of him. One is to earn enough for his family of four. The second is to stop breaking down over the loss of his sibling.

“We chatted on the phone for over an hour the night before he went missing,” said Manik. He added that he had called his brother to ask for money to buy a jacket for Zahidul.

“The weather was getting cold and I felt that Zahidul needed to wear something warmer than just full-sleeved shirts,” he added. Manirul, who liked to buy clothes from Shillong and nearby areas for himself and friends and family, agreed to wire ₹1,000 for the purpose. “Even that night he told me that he was going to collect his dues [about ₹32,000] from the manager that week and quit working in the mine. He had also asked the manager to keep his sum ready,” Manik said.

It was this money that had taken Manirul back to Ksan after his last long leave from work. The family cannot clearly remember the month of his visit — but it was more than two months before the accident in December 2018. “He had extended his stay by a couple of weeks. It now seems that he didn’t want to return. He ran errands for the house, helped me fetch coconuts from the trees, bought gifts for everyone at home…” Solibor’s voice trailed off as he recalled the last time he saw his son. “ Bahut mohabbat karta tha (he loved us a lot),” he said before stepping back into the house to attend to Zahidul.

The boy has hardly spoken to anyone since December 13. He chose to remain in his room, with his books and smartphone. He sat at the window during our visit, refusing to meet outsiders. “His final exams were on when we got the news. I don’t know how he continued to appear for the papers. He passed with good marks,” said Solibor. He is sure that Zahidul is never leaving home for hazardous jobs. “I want to see him finish college and work in an office. I want my children to be alive and happy. No cheque can bring us any consolation,” he said as he walked us to the car.

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Miss Abijan Khatun (29) — she stressed on the title when asked to spell her name — was finishing a meagre lunch of rice and boiled vegetables when we entered her home about 15 minutes from Manirul’s residence. Her second daughter, Amrita Begum (6), clung to her as the entire village gathered to watch the widow of Amir Hussain talk to the media. A mother of three, Abijan seemed unconvinced that any amount of coverage was going to lift her and her children out of poverty and despair.

United we grieve: Sajeda Khatun (left) with Abijan Khatun at the former’s village home in Barpeta district. They lost their husbands in the December mine tragedy. Sajeda’s husband’s body is yet to be retrieved. Abijan’s husband, Amir Hussain, was laid to rest more than a month after the accident. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

“Why are you here, sister?” she asked while Abdul Salam, her father-in-law, tried to take over the conversation. “I have buried my son with my own hands. I built his grave,” he said, indicating the spot where he laid Amir to rest. Abijan remained silent as the 60-year-old man described the family’s poor financial condition. “I don’t know where the next meal is coming from,” he cried, “and I am too old to work.”

Also a casual labourer who never earned more than ₹300 a day, Abdul, Amir’s uncle who adopted him as a child, borrowed from the local moneylender to make a bigger house for the miner in the village. “We have used the compensation to repay a part of the loan,” he said.

Abijan, unhappy with the fact that her father-in-law didn’t allow her to keep some of the money for her day-to-day expenses, was curious why no one from the Assam government had visited them. “What good is this sum of money? My husband is dead. His body was unidentifiable. And I have no skills or education,” she said. “I don’t even have money to take Amrita to the doctor for fever.”

In the absence of medicines and proper nutrition, Abijan has learned to depend on prayers and tabeez (amulets) for her children’s well-being. It was also a tabeez that helped her identify Amir’s body in the last week of January. (The only other body recovered was that of Dimonme Dkhar, from Lumthia village in the East Jaintia Hills district.) “Amir still had his shoes and socks on. It was heartbreaking to see him in that condition, wrapped in tarpaulin,” she trembled as she remembered her spouse of 13 years. Theirs had been a love marriage, something that her in-laws didn’t approve of wholeheartedly.

Between sobs and wails, much to the open dislike of her father-in-law, Abijan blamed their new house for the death of her husband. “We needed the money to pay off the loan, that’s why he took up this dangerous job. I couldn’t even say bye to him properly the last time we spoke,” she said, toying with a black feature phone that hardly ever rings now.

Abijan said Amir had called her up the night before he was trapped. “He spoke for less than a minute. He said he had to sleep early because he was going into the mine at dawn. I was busy putting my son to bed so we decided to chat later,” she added.

The dark circles under her eyes indicated lack of sleep. “My son didn’t let me sleep the night on which I last spoke to my husband. After that, my life has changed so much that I cannot sleep anyway. Every time I close my eyes, I see him stuck in the coal pit, struggling to breathe, struggling to reach us,” she said.

Her children keep asking his whereabouts because their mother didn’t allow them to see the decomposed body. “It was too grotesque a sight,” she explained.

Unsure of her future with her in-laws, Abijan’s desperate pleas for a stable source of income highlighted the precarious situation she was in. “I have no savings. My husband was a good man, he always brought us fruits and clothes, he loved me and my children, but I was never consulted on financial matters. I need a job. I need to save my children,” she said as we drove to the doctor at Bhangamari, about 10 minutes from where she lives.

“Please tell the government to do something for us,” she said, before joining the long queue at the clinic.

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There is no lack of trust between Sajeda Khatun (25), also a mother of three, and her parents-in-law. Her husband, Chaher Islam (35), was among the miners trapped in Ksan.

It was not a job he liked, according to his mother Mastaban Bibi. “He was forced to work there because he had borrowed ₹3 lakh for a business in selling vegetables. The business never took off and the moneylenders were after his life,” she said.

Sajeda had little or no say in her husband’s work life. She remained a silent spectator when he packed his bags for a life in the illegal mines. She had no answer to our queries on her plans ahead. Her face betrayed no emotion as she moved around the compound of their house with her children in tow, authorising her in-laws to speak on her behalf.

“I have asked her to stay with us. She is a part of the family and we will look after her. You can see our condition — but she will not go hungry.” said Manik Ali, Sajeda’s father-in-law. The frail sexagenarian dissolved into tears when asked if he would allow his young daughter-in-law — bowari in Assamese — to remarry. “I cannot stop her. She has a whole life ahead of her,” he replied.

His quavering voice became steely when the topic of discussion changed to government apathy and neglect towards miners in risk-prone areas. “No government has ever done anything for us. No one ever will. My son’s death has taught me this lesson,” he said as he instructed Sajeda to serve tea and paan-tamul .

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His body covered with bruises and his knees still weak, Sahib Ali (21), the lone survivor from Assam (the rest were from Meghalaya), started a fresh work innings in Kerala last month. The man who broke the news to Manirul’s and Chaher Islam’s families didn’t receive any state help for his medical treatment, the family said.

Helpless: The lone survivor from Assam, 21-year-old Sahib Ali received no state aid for the treatment of the injuries he sustained during his escape from the flooded mine. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

Sahib Ali was near the opening of the mine when he first heard the water gush in. In the scramble that followed, he sustained injuries to his chest. Multiple bruises covered his neck, shoulders and hands, making it difficult for him to lie on his back, his family held.

“We paid from our pocket. My brother was in a bad shape, his skin was peeling off and he was unable to sleep,” his sister Mofiara Khatun (19) said. Married to another son of Mastaban Bibi, she claimed that no one came forward to assist her brother. “He left for Kerala so that he can stay away from the mines. I don’t know where exactly he lives and how much he earns, but at least he is safe and alive.”

In the light of the fading sun, it surely was the most comforting line of the day.

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