Over a hundred people had a close shave on late Wednesday evening when a major portion of a mosque situated in Dhanbad caved in with a bang soon after the the prayers were completed. The bathrooms, wuzukhana besides main entrance, stairs, generator and other items kept in the building slipped in the subsided area at 22/12 basti Tetulmari under Jogta police station of Dhanbad district. The affected area is under area five, Sizua of BCCL.
A huge goaf has occurred in the main building making the entire building dangerous for human use, claimed the mosque committee member Imtiyaz Ahmed. This happens to be the second incident when the mosque has subsided. In 2013 too a mosque had subsided in similar manner, claim locals including Ibrar Ashraf, Hasib Khan besides others.
The area is underground fire affected and subsidence takes place very often in different localities.
People hold outsourced mining company Hilltop Highrise responsible for the subsidence and forced the company workers to stop mining operations in protest.
The villagers claim that heavy blasting by the outsourced company is the main cause of the subsidence.
On Thursday they reached local headquarters of the area five and held demonstrations demanding immediate steps for filling the caved in area, said Imtiaz, who also is president of the Muslim committee.
President of Jogta Nagrik Sangh(JNS)AK Sinha, who supported the demonstrations said ,the incident is a clear indicator of how irresponsible the attitude the BCCL authorities hold towards fire affected areas. Meeting at police station level talks to resume production was on by Jogta police station in-charge Pankaj Kumar. The villagers led by INTUC leader Ashok Lal were demanding adequate compensation and safety assurance from BCCL authorities then only work would resume , said Lal.
BCCL Sizua Area General Manager PK Dubey said that as far as demand of rehabilitation of affected families is concerned would be taken up after consultations with headquarters and the Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority. However, its fire zone and on several occasions in the past both the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) as well as BCCL have served notices to vacate the dangerous fire affected area but the villagers on different pretexts have not vacated the fire area.
