Woman SP makes Bihar's coal mafia run for cover

Woman SP makes Bihar's coal mafia run for cover
SONU JAIN

HAZARIBAGH, JULY 16: A thin mud track leads from the outskirts of Hazaribagh to a coal dump in the middle of the thick forest. It used to be bustling with activity when coal was being mined in the darkness of the night from a long-abandoned Central Coalfields Limited mine next to the Damodar river. Not any longer. Today, the place is strangely silent as the trucks which carry coal to far-off places are not coming. Even the chowkidar is absconding.

The coal dump went to sleep in the first week of June when a 33-year-old woman, Shobha Ohatker, took over as Superintendent of Police in Hazaribagh. For the first time in the history of the coal-belt which stretches to 70 sq km, the biggest names in the coal mafia are now in jail and others scurry for cover with arrest warrants chasing them.

Within the first hour of her taking over, she got an anonymous call saying there were tonnes of illegal coal lying at a particular place. ``I took off within half an hour and saw tonnes of coal worth crores lying in a dump. I realised that it was national resources that was being looted everyday,'' said Ohatker.

Since then there has been no looking back. In less than two months, more than 40 coal thieves are in jail and 10,000 metric tonnes of coal worth worth Rs 1.5 crore seized by her. Fifty more warrants have been issued.

``I am happy that for the first time, all those whom I considered in Grade A after research, have been arrested except for one,'' she said. They include Nirmal Jain, A K Handa, Shambhu Singh, Pradeep Thakker, Ramesh Jain and Pradeep Beltharia.

The coal mafia had almost become part of the system. Each of the trucks leaving the dump pays a stipulated sum of money to the local police chowki (Rs 4,800 per truck). On paying this, a small mark is put on the challan which is called a `banner'. This banner is the passport to all the borders, meaning someone somewhere has been paid for it.

And while public sector units like CCL have become white elephants with losses running into crores, this had become a parallel economy in Chotanagpur. Nearly 500-600 trucks of coal leave everyday, most of them bound for Varanasi.

The paperwork at first glance seems official with names and addresses of buyers. ``When I got them checked, they were found to be fictitious or were so small that business of this magnitude was not possible like Khujra Bazaar in Dhanbad,'' said the SP.

What really cracked the well-oiled nexus between these seasoned operators and the police? ``This time I realised that the only way to make them surrender was to break them completely. I did this by issuing `attachment of property' after the arrest warrant. The day I would do it, these people would come and surrender. The district judge has been very cooperative,'' said Ohatker.

She is now the favourite topic of drawing-room conversations. For the locals, she is Kiran Bedi or Lady Amitabh Bachchan of Zanjeer. With people used to complacent male police officers, it is tempting for them to reduce her to a half-crazed woman police inspector who revels in strong-arm tactics (she is also called hunterwali).

Her fire-brand image carries forward from her tenure in Darbanga when she exposed the ISI links of a former RJD MP. The town had observed a two-day bandh when she was transferred from there. She is married to an IAS officer, who is DC, Chatra at present.

The latest story about her doing the rounds is that she asked a wife to slap her husband because he was violating parking rules. ``I have heard these stories and they are only being spread to malign me. Some of them are spread by my junior officers who are not comfortable with my firm stance,'' said Ohatker.

Since the same area is also an MCC stronghold, the coal mafia used to be the second priority for most police officials. ``I felt they were connected. Most of this illegal mining of coal is done in the same forests, and to survive there, the coal mafia pays the MCC activists too,'' explained Ohatker.

Her obsession with the subject means that she could be transferred soon -- as usual. ``Till now there has been no political interference, but I am prepared to move in an hour's notice,'' she said.

But not before she has seen the beginning of the end of the cola mafia. ``Since the police is involved, I have transferred police officials from all sensitive police stations, suspended two and replaced them with honest ones,'' she added.