Dhanbad: Two senior officials of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) were allegedly assaulted by local coal mafia members during an inspection at Block-II project area, nearly 40 km from here, late on Friday. An FIR was registered against 16 people at Baghmara police station in connection with the incident on Saturday.BCCL general manager (security) Hafizul Qureshi and block-II general manager Kumar Ranjiv visited the area to investigate repeated damage to CCTV cameras over the past three days. As their vehicles arrived at the site, a group of men surrounded them. They tried to drag the duo out of their car, pushed the officers and assaulted them.The situation escalated rapidly as the officers attempted to move towards Baghmara police station for safety. The attackers reportedly followed them, forcibly stopped their vehicle midway and tried to abduct the officers by forcibly trying to shift them into another vehicle. The driver of the vehicle carrying the officers was also assaulted.CISF commandant Pradeep Vishwakarma and inspector Rajeev Yadav were also present at the site during the incident.One of the officers managed to escape and reached the police station, following which security personnel rescued Qureshi.Both officers were then escorted to the regional office of the project.Qureshi claimed the attackers knew them by name and verbally abused them before trying to assault them.“Timely intervention by police and CISF prevented a more serious outcome,” he said.Based on BCCL chairman-cum-managing director Manoj Agarwal’s complaint, an FIR was lodged against Pintu Mahtha and 15 other unidentified persons.Baghmara subdivisional police officer Purushottam Singh said, “A case has been registered, and raids are being conducted. Efforts are on to identify and arrest the accused.” No arrests were made till Saturday evening.
