Akshay Kumar to star in film on 1989 Raniganj Coalfield rescue mission?

After playing Ranjit Katyal in Airlift, where he rescued stranded Indians in war-prone Kuwait, Akshay Kumar is set to play the role of a coal-mining engineer in a film based on the Ran Ganj Coalfield rescue mission. In 1774, Lord Warren Hastings gave two Englishmen a license to extract coal in Rani Ganj in West Bengal. By the late 19th century, Rani Ganj was producing around 88 per cent of coal in India. But mining started elsewhere and Rani Ganj produced only ten per cent of the coal in the country.

And then, the rains in 1989 in Rani Ganj were terrible. It rained so much that the roof of the minefields collapsed and it was left to J.S. Gill, the chief mining engineer, to plan the rescue of 64 miners trapped in the coal mine. Akshay is now planning a film on the rescue mission, where he wants to essay Gill’s role. While we are not aware of who will be handed the director’s chair in the film, we are told that it will be one of Akshay’s trusted men in his current phone book.

—Sanskriti Media