Dergaon, Nov 14 : At least 20 labourers were injured, two of them seriously, when two groups clashed at Jamuguri tea estate under Gheladhari police outpost in Assam’s Golaghat district today.
Golaghat superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said trouble started around 9am when labourers of the garden, who had gone to pluck leaf in a particular section of the estate, were attacked by a 10-member group of former tea workers with bows, arrows and sharp weapons.
He said labourers from both the groups were injured in the clash and two of them have been hospitalised.
The ex-tea labourers reside on the fringe areas of the estate, Kumar added.
The section of the garden in which trouble occurred was allegedly encroached by a powerful labour leader, Paulus Kindu, in 2006. Since then, he has been claiming that this portion of the land belonged to him.
In fact, Kindu had uprooted tea bushes in a large area of this section of the garden a few days back.An official of the Calcutta-based Bhumia Tea Private Limited, which owns the garden located south of Golaghat town, said several complaints had been lodged with the police against Kindu, but no action was taken against him as he had strong political connections.
A civil suit has also been filed regarding encroachment of the tea estate land, he added.
A police official at Gheladhari outpost said nine labourers had been picked up in connection with the alleged destruction of tea bushes on Tuesday and today’s incident was being probed.
Kumar said a police picket has been posted at the tea estate after today’s clash.
A tea garden worker alleged that Kindu’s men were always disturbing them and had threatened to harm them if they stepped into the area of the garden which belonged to him.
“They are armed and we feel scared of them,” he added.
Industry sources said during the period of recession, portions of gardens in Assam were neglected because of the costs involved in their up-keep.
“It was during those bad days that such areas in the gardens were forcibly occupied by people who wanted to put the land to alternative use like paddy cultivation,” one of the sources said.
“The Jamuguri garden also suffered a similar fate,” he added.
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