Beneath the surface, death and despair in illegal Saurashtra mines

On July 16, Khakhratal village in Surendranagar in Gujarat was in mourning. Thirty-seven-year-old Devsinbhai Rojara had entered a small cubbyhole of a mine, as he did every day, to earn his daily wage. It was pouring, the monsoon was raging, the pockmarked ground was unstable. The illegal mine collapsed, and while two others managed to make it out alive, Rojara was dead.