)
Villagers stopped transports from the Parsa East-Kanta Basan coal mine operated by the Adani group in the Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh after a vehicle crushed a local youth to death late Friday evening.
The man, identified as Mohanram (26), was a resident of Parsa village. A vehicle last evening crushed him to death near the project site. He died on the spot. According to Jailal, a villager, company executives did not intimate the family members and shifted Mohanram to Sarguja district hospital, about 50 km from the spot.
ALSO READ: Adani Group faces land hurdle for Dhamra port expansion
The villagers came to know about Mohanram’s death late in the night. On Saturday morning, they gathered outside the coal mine and staged a protest. The placed boulders on the road and blocked the transport of coal from the mine, originally allotted to public sector Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam but later passed on to the Adani group through a mining development and operations contract.
About 10,000 tonnes of coal are transported every day from the mine to the railway siding in Ambikapur. Over 400 vehicles are engaged in the work.
“The transportation of coal from the mine has come to a standstill and efforts are on to clear the blockade,” Sarguja Superintendent of Police R S Nayak told
Business Standard. The villagers ransacked the company check post and set a shop nearby on fire, he said, adding that additional forces had been deployed.
The situation is under control as police officials were convincing villagers not to take the law into their own hands, Nayak added. The police were investigating the accident and Nayak said action would be taken against villagers for ransacking the check post.
The villagers initially refused to cremate the body the police handed over. They had been on dharna outside the site demanding that Adani executives should announce compensation for the family members of Mohanram.
Company executives could not be contacted. The media contact number on the company’s website remained unanswered.
