Bhubaneswar, Oct. 18: Laterite stone quarries in Sundarapada, Jamukoli and Barakuda areas on the outskirts of the city have become death traps for many people and animals.

Yesterday, two diploma engineering students of a nearby college drowned in an abandoned illegal stone quarry pit that was filled with water.

Many people use these pits as ponds as most of them get filled with water over a period of time after the quarries close down. This year, incessant rains in the last two months and floods in the Daya river in the first week of September filled the quarries with more water than usual.

“In our area there are more than 200 big and small stone quarries. Some are active while others have been left abandoned. The abandoned quarries have mostly become death traps for the local people and their animals,” said Rajkishore Deo, a local resident, adding that many cattle have died after falling from the ledges. Besides some minor accidents have also occurred in such pits.

In August this year, Khandagiri police recovered the body of a 35-year-old woman from one of these water-filled stone quarries in Patrapada. The woman, who was not a local resident, was unaware of the depth of the pit and took the still waters for a pond.

Apart from being death traps, these illegal stone quarries have also become a safe haven for criminals. During summer months, when the pits remain dry, many criminals use them as their hideouts as the areas are located far away from city limits.

In June 2 this year, eight people, including a railway protection force employee, were arrested for illegally quarrying and selling stones from the land allocated to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Arugul on the outskirts of the city. Police said they had dug nearly 20 acres out of 935 acres provided to the premier institute.

In February this year, criminals had lobbed bombs at a bar in Patrapada area, as the bar owner, who was also a contractor for the construction work on the proposed IIT campus, opposed to illegal stone quarrying activities there.

On Sundarpada-Jatni road there are four engineering colleges. Abandoned water-filled quarries nearby pose threat to the students of all these institutes. Along Patrapada-Jatni road, abandoned stone quarries surround about 15 institutes. Speaking to The Telegraph, Nilu Mohapatra, the tehsildar of Jatni, said though only four sites have got the permission for quarrying of laterite stones, others were operating illegally.

Regarding illegal quarries in Jatni block, Mohapatra said: “There is no enumeration of such sites and the process will start soon to know their exact number.”

Revenue sources also added that many quarries were given permission by the Jagannath temple administration to facilitate quarrying of stones of certain quality, which are used by artisans for stone carving and handicrafts.