All families of the trapped miners in the illegally operated coal mine at Khloo Ryngksan village in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district have given their nod to call off the search and rescue operations, said Meghalaya’s disaster management minister on Wednesday.

Revenue and disaster management minister Kyrmen Shylla said the government has received correspondence from all the families stating that they no longer have any objection to the rescue ops coming to an end after four and a half months. Chief minister Conrad Sangma said the state government will be appealing to Supreme Court to order calling off the operations as they are becoming increasingly difficult and have not yielded desired results.

With family members from Garo Hills region informing the district administration through their MLA, Azad Zaman, all families have now agreed to discontinue the operations.

Relatives of the trapped miners from East Jaintia Hills and Assam had already agreed to call off the operations.

First Published: May 02, 2019 01:29 IST