SHILLONG, Jan 30 - The East Jaintia Hills district administration has blacked out information about the rescue operation in the flooded mine to the media for the past 36 hours and even State Home Minister James Sangma is clueless why it is being done.
�I have no idea about this (information blackout) and will try to find out why,� Sangma said when asked. The district administration has also imposed restrictions on the movement of media personnel at the rescue site.
Repeated calls to the District Public Relations Officer, R Susngi, remained unanswered or there was network outage. East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner Fredrick Dopth and other officials have also kept away from the media.
Any information gathered by the media about the operation is through sources other than those of the district administration.
Meanwhile, the rescue operation has entered a new phase with the involvement of the Indian Army. Tents have been pitched at the site and the Indian Navy has been relocated to the site. This probably means that it will now be a 24x7 operation.
As per the latest information available, another body has been detected. But there has been no information about its fate in the past 36 hours.
Family members of the victims � some surmise that 20 miners are trapped � are desperate to know about the rescue operation. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, has asked the State Government to continue the operations.
