Mosque caves in BCCL colliery area in Dhanbad, residents stop mining

Over 1500 families are living in the area.BCCL officials did not comment on the incident.INTUC leader Ashok Lal warned that people would stop mining in the Modidih Colliery if BCCL fails to rehabilitate the residents in a safe place.

A major portion of a mosque caved in Modidih basti of Sijua colliery area of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), around 20 km away from here in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district, police said on Thursday.

When the incident took place on Wednesday night no one was present inside the mosque. Four washrooms, wazukhan, ajangah, tower, main gate and courtyard of the mosque caved in.

The residents of area said that over 100 people had offered prayer in the mosque at around 5.30 pm while the incident occurred around 7.30 pm when some parts of the mosque caved in with a loud sound.

Rattled by incident, irate villagers stopped mining by the outsourced company. The outsourced company officials and miners fled from the colliery. Getting information officer-in-charge of Jogta police station Pankaj Verma and officers of BCCL Survey department reached the spot on Wednesday night and barricaded the surrounding area of mosque for safety point of view.

Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) and management of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) have already declared the area a danger zone due to underground fire and served eviction notice to illegal residents, a police official said.

The residents alleged that BCCL authorities declared the basti as danger zone but did not initiate any steps for the rehabilitation of residents. Over 1500 families are living in the area.

BCCL officials did not comment on the incident.

INTUC leader Ashok Lal warned that people would stop mining in the Modidih Colliery if BCCL fails to rehabilitate the residents in a safe place.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)