The East Jaintia Hills Police have dismissed as false a media report claiming that five people were killed in an explosion at an illegal coal mine in Thangsko around two weeks ago.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Shailendra Bamaniya said an extensive verification exercise was conducted after the report appeared in an English daily on Friday. According to the police, no evidence was found to support the claim that such an incident had occurred.
The police also contacted the Dolloi of Elaka Sutnga, who confirmed that no incident matching the description in the report had taken place in the area.
The report had alleged that five labourers from outside the state were feared dead following an explosion inside an illegal coal mine in Thangsko. It further claimed that the bodies were quickly transported to Assam in an attempt to conceal the ongoing illegal mining activity.
However, the police have categorically rejected these claims, stating that their inquiry found no facts or evidence to substantiate the report.
The clarification comes against the backdrop of a major mining tragedy that occurred earlier this year. On February 5, 2026, a powerful dynamite explosion tore through an illegal rat-hole coal mine in the Mynsngat area of Thangsko in East Jaintia Hills, killing 33 labourers, most of them migrant workers, and injuring several others.
Rescue teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), and local police conducted extensive recovery operations in the days that followed. The death toll eventually rose from an initial figure of 18 to 33.
Investigators later recovered detonators and electrical wires from the site, indicating that improvised explosive materials had been used within the narrow underground tunnels of the illegal mine.
