T.P. Singh: The "Guru" responsible for large-scale coal racketeering in Dhanbad

As a breeding ground for criminals, Dhanbad, the nerve centre of the country's coal belt, perhaps has no equal. With the stench of corruption emanating from even the highest levels of government, the law and order machinery has virtually come to a grinding halt. Occasionally, however, the police stumble across a crime purely by chance eventually unearthing yet another major scandal inevitably involving large-scale racketeering in coal.

Last month, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths stationed in the coal belt carried out some routine arrests of persons suspected of forging documents and discovered to their surprise that they had accidentally tripped across one of the biggest gangs operating in the area. The realisation set in fairly late because, as the sleuths found out later, senior officials in the two main coal companies operating in Dhanbad -Coal India Limited (CIL) and Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) were also involved in the racket.

The brain behind the racket was a man known locally as "Guru" who, according to CBI sources, had siphoned off an estimated Rs 5 crore in a two-year period by acquiring Delivery Orders (DOs) and Release Orders (ROs) from the coal companies and selling them in the flourishing black market. Guru had already earned himself a fat criminal dossier before he arrived in Dhanbad looking for big money.