Bellary mining officer missing in Odisha

Bellary: A senior officer of the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), who hails from Sandur in Bellary district, has gone missing from Bhubaneswar in Odisha since Monday, allegedly after refusing to bend to pressure from the coal mining lobby in that state.

The missing officer, Ibrahim Sharief (34), the son of an LIC employee from Yashawantanagar village in Sandur, allegedly turned down bribes offer­ed by the mining lobby and refused to present a favo­urable inspection report.

Sharief joined the IBM's regional office in Chandrapur in Bhuba­n­es­war as an assistant contr­oller of mines in January 2011. He and his wife Salma Parveeen were staying in Kanan Vihar area.

On Monday morning, Sharief left for work, but did not reached office. Salma, worried that Sharief did not come home for lunch, called up the office, but was told that he had not reached the workplace. When he did not return till late in the night, Salma lodged a missing complaint with the Info­city police on Tuesday evening.

“His disappearance is mysterious. His motorbike was found abandoned in the parking lot of a private hospital, barely 200 metre from the IBM regional office,” Salma's brother Mohammed Javed said.

Sharief visited a few mines in Barbil mining area of Keonjhar district, known for illegal mining activities, in September.

He was quite tense at home a week before his disappearance, and seemed to be under pressure from the mining lobby to accept a bribe and give a favourable inspection report. But he was not yielding to their pressure, Javed said.

IBM sources said that a team of three policemen from Bhubaneswar left for Uttar Pradesh on Thurs­day after they got information that signals from Sharief's mobile phone were traced to Allahabad. “The cellphone was active for a few minutes on Tues­day. It was traced to Alla­h­abad and then to Mugha­lsarai. But it was switched off later,” said an officer.

Sandur MLA E. Tuka­ram, who is also a native of Yashawanta­nagar village, said that he will pressure the state government to take up the issue with the Odisha government to speed up the investigation into the mysterious disappearance.