TUR strongly condemns the Meghalaya State Government for its long-standing role in enabling illegal coal mining in the state, in blatant disregard of constitutional mandates, statutory laws and judicial directives. For decades, a culture of impunity has prevailed, openly defying orders of the National Green Tribunal and other courts, resulting in a serious breakdown of law and governance in districts where rampant coal mining continues.
The government continues to misrepresent the reality of illegal mining and coal transportation. Its response has been limited to rhetoric and token compensations whenever large-scale accidents occur, tragedies too grave to conceal or ignore, while failing to address the systemic failures that allow such disasters to repeat.
Critical questions demand answers: How does illegal coal mining and transportation persist despite explicit legal prohibitions? Why are district administrations, state bureaucracies, police authorities, and regulatory bodies — including Pollution Control, Mining and Geology, Transport, Weights and Measures, Taxation, and other departments — not being held accountable for persistent violations of law and court orders? Why does the state repeatedly fail to implement labour protections under laws such as the Migrant Workers Act and the Building and Other Construction Workers Act and other Labour laws thereby denying workers their rights, dignity, and safety?
Illegal coal mining has claimed the lives of miners and devastated communities whose agricultural and alternative livelihoods have been destroyed. It has severely damaged water bodies and polluted rivers, leaving many low-income families in mining areas without access to safe drinking water.
This unchecked exploitation of public resources by a small, powerful, and corrupt mining elite has pushed the state toward social and environmental collapse, where human lives are treated as expendable in the pursuit of unlawful profit.
We call upon the citizens of Meghalaya to rise and speak up against this criminal capture of our polity, a system with blood on its hands, exposed yet again by the tragedy in Thangskoo and the many before it.
We further urge democratic institutions to act with integrity and urgency to uphold the rule of law, protect fundamental rights, and ensure that this tragedy marks the end of illegal coal mining. Justice demands decisive action in the interest of the wider public, especially the exploited and marginalized communities who continue to bear the greatest burden.
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