“We fulfilled our duty to the Nation”, “We did it for our brothers who were trapped, it could have been us”- these are the words by Wakeel Hassan and Munna Qureshi at today’s felicitation ceremony of the 12 rescue miners who rescued the 41 trapped workers from Uttarkashi’s Silkyara tunnel. The nation watched how these rescue workers helped the fellow workers come out of 17 days long entrapment.
CPIML held a ‘Shramik Samman Samaroh’ to felicitate the 12 rescue miners at its Central Office, Charu Bhawan at Delhi on 15 December.
Munna Qureshi, Monu Kumar, Feroze Qureshi, Naseem Mallik, Nasir Khan, Jatin, Devender Kumar, Saurabh, Wakeel Hassan, Irshad Ansari, Rashid Ansari, Ankur- they are the 12 rescue workers. Though they are now being known as ‘Rat Hole Miners’, they told us their occupation is manual drilling. They are the ones who lay pipelines at several feet’s depth from ground.
CPIML National General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and other AICCTU-CPIML leaders felicitated the workers. “Today when we are getting a chance to speak, we want to talk about the situation of workers in the country. Workers like us can not afford to have a house of our own in our lifetime. Education, health and everything else are going in private hands. Future of our children are at stake. Even in government projects, private companies are being involved. How difficult is it to give regular jobs to workers?”, said Nasir Khan, one of the rescue workers who hails from Kashganj, Uttar Pradesh.
Neither the Prime Minister nor the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand has met the workers yet. The promised Rs 50,000 from Uttarakhand government is still pending.
Dipankar Bhattacharya, CPIML National General Secretary said, “Listening to the team of miners who rescued the 41 trapped workers last month from the Silkiyara tunnel in Uttarakhand is listening to unsung heroes of the Indian working class - full of courage, compassion, determination and solidarity. The disastrous model named development model in India’s Himalayas are being carried on the soldiers of our workers. CPIML demands that the central government must ensure regularised government jobs for all the rescue miners and an official recognition of their bravery.”
