Inside West Bengal's Coal Mines and the Alleged 'Pilferage Scam'

The CBI alleges that the scam involves a group of people - from politicians to mining authorities.

Visiting Asansol’s coal belts and talking to the locals in the area will reveal that the smuggling of coal is not new and has been happening for decades now, but what has changed in recent years is the implementation of a system designed to optimise the process.

The alleged 'coal pilferage scam' in West Bengal, which is currently being investigated by both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, allegedly involves illegal mining and transportation of coal worth crores of rupees.

Early this August, the Enforcement Directorate had issued summons to eight IPS officers, including Gyanwant Singh, Koteswara Rao, S Selvamurugan, Shyam Singh, Rajeev Mishra, Sukesh Kumar Jain, and Tathagata Basu in relation to the case, on different dates between 16th and 31st August. The officers have been summoned individually.

View the full story in graphic illustrations here:

Two months ago, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed its first charge sheet on 19 May in the same case. The charge sheet names a total of 41 people including Anup Maji alias Lala, who has been at the centre of the said scam.

The charge sheet also includes the names of eight former Eastern Coalfield Limited officials, who were earlier arrested. These were Vinay Mishra, Bikash Mishra, Gurupada Majhi, Joydeb Burman, Nirod Mondal, Ratnes Verma, Narayan Nanda, along with 12 coal buying companies and 10 private firms.

Gurupada Maji, Joydeb Mandal, Nirod Mandal and Narayan Kharka were arrested before and are out on bail now. Lala, Vinay Mishra and Ratneswar Varma are absconding, while Vikash Mishra and the eight ECL officials are in custody.

This coal is transported from Bengal’s Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and even the India-Nepal border. This is allegedly done with the help of government officials and the police. According to CBI sources, the total proceeds of the crime stand at approximately 1900 crore rupees.

How is Coal Illegally Mined and Transported?

Bengal’s coal belt spreads across four districts encompassing Paschim Bardhaman, Bankura, Birbhum and Purulia, and across 32 police stations.

A few individuals facilitating these activities told The Quint on the condition of anonymity that the coal is illegally mined during the wee hours of the night by several workers. During the day, this mined coal is separately packed in sacks and transported to illegal depots in bicycles, bullock carts or scooters.

If the workers are inside the coalfields, they are under the jurisdiction of the CISF. Outside, the state police, specifically the Asansol police is in-charge. These local smugglers allege that they must pay CISF and police officials Rs. 20-30 per person to smuggle the coal.

These depots are located 3-4 km away from the coalfields. Such depots are in Kalla, Sripur, Pandabeshwar, Baraboni, Salanpur. It is here that the smuggled coal is weighed and loaded onto trucks, which then transport the coal outside Bengal, towards Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, through Jharkhand and Bihar. It is alleged that some of the smuggled coal also heads towards the India-Nepal border.

The truck drivers are given ‘pads’ or a type of challan which they can produce in front of the cops or the border police. These ‘pads’ are a symbolic indicator of which mafia the coal belongs to. Previously the ‘pads’ used to carry a symbol of a deity but have now changed to names of ‘companies.’

Local smugglers allege that these pads are a sign for the authorities to allow the trucks to pass through. They further allege that the police on the highway are bribed by the mafia and instructed to let their trucks pass through.

This smuggled coal is sold at a much cheaper rate than what the ECL sells, without any significant change in quality.

There have been instances where trucks put up a fake license plates and allegedly smuggled the coal. An ECL official had caught one such truck red-handed recently.

The Case So Far

The ECL had lodged their first CBI complaint in November 2020 after an inspection by its vigilance wing found evidence of ‘extensive smuggling of coal’ across the Paschim Bardhaman area. The FIR named six people two general managers of ECL, a security chief, Anup Maji and his deputy Joydeb Mondal.

The FIR named Anup Maji aka Lala, ECL General Managers Amit Kumar Dhar (Pandabeshwar) and Jayesh Chandra (Kajor), ECL Chief of Security Tanmay Das, area security inspector Kunustoria Dhananjay Rai and Kajor area’s security in-charge Debashish Mukherjee.

At the epicentre of this whole episode stands Anup Maji alias Lala, who is accused of paying kickbacks to influential people, to let him run his ‘illegal mining and transportation of coal’. In many ways, he is being called the ‘kingpin’ of this whole operation.

Maji allegedly dominates coal transport routes not only in Bengal’s coal belt but also in Jharkhand. It is said that he owns a fleet of at least 700 trucks for transporting the coal to at least 75 steel and sponge iron units.

The CBI registered a case under sections 120B (party to a criminal conspiracy) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) of the Indian Penal Code and section 13(2) read with 13(1)A of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Amended) 2018 into the “systematic theft of coal from the leasehold area of ECL under Kunustoria, Kajora Area.”

The FIR said that “illegal excavation and theft of coal” from the leasehold area of ECL, was taking place “in active connivance of the officials of ECL, CISF, Indian Railways and concerned other departments.”

Post that, both Abhishek and Rujira have been grilled by ED several times over the past year in relation to the case. However, it must be mentioned that no chargesheet mentions their name yet. Recently an FIR was filed against Rujira for not showing up for questioning by the ED.

On 15 July, the CBI arrested seven officials, including a serving general manager (Mukesh Kumar), three retired general managers, a manager and two security guards of ECL after a marathon interrogation. According to the CBI, there were several inconsistencies in their statements, which led to their arrest and subsequently being named in the charge sheet.

The names include SC Moitra, Abhijit Mullick, Sushanta Banerjee, Tanmay Das, Debashish Mukherjee, Rinku Bera and Mukesh Kumar.

The defence lawyers have claimed that the CBI has not been able to find any incriminating evidence of corruption or bribery against the officials despite doing a search and seizure of their property. They further added that ECL had repeatedly requested the police and government authorities to act against the illegal mining and transportation of coal, but no action was taken.

Meanwhile the ED has summoned West Bengal PWD minister Moloy Ghatak and TMC MLA Sushanta Mahato for questioning.

The state administration, in order to curb the smuggling of coal has drawn up a 14-point checklist for trucks transporting coal from other states to enter Bengal.

The truck driver will have to produce valid challan to transport coal. We will verify it with the coal mining company. The factory management where the coal is supposed to deliver will have to submit us their business details.

Asansol Police

It was only a matter of time before the case took a political colour. Abhishek and Rujira Banerjee were called in for questioning primarily during the run up to the 2021 West Bengal Assembly Elections. Banerjee accused the BJP of using central agencies to harass TMC leaders.

He even threw an open challenge to claim that he will 'hang himself publicly' if there was even a shred of evidence of him receiving money.

Meanwhile, the BJP and the CPIM have been going all guns blazing against the Trinamool Congress who have been finding themselves a part of one scam after another.