The largest and century old tea garden in Tripura has been shut down for indefinite period after the labourers of the garden allegedly abused and assaulted the Manager and the Assistant Manager over clearance of pending wages. The incident occurred at the Murtichhera Tea garden in Kailashahar under Unakoti district two days ago.
Murtichhera Tea garden was established in 1917 by one Vijoy Agarwal. The largest tea garden of the State – Murtichhera Tea garden was facing multiple problems during the last few years.
However, the situation took a turn for worse after the workers turned hostile two days ago. Speaking to the media in Kailashahar on Sunday (Jan 15), Manager Raj Kumar Gupta and Assistant Manager Somnath Chakraborty said while going works in the garden, angry workers turned up to Manager’s office and demanded immediate clearance of their pending wages.
Gupta who assumed charges two months ago tried to reason with the workers and said, “I talked with the owners of the garden and arranged Rs 70,000 out of the total pending Rs 4-5 lakh. For the remaining dues, I will contact owners again and will gradually clear those”.
However, the workers reportedly did not pacify with this and started abusing Gupta and his assistant Chakraborty. The workers also assaulted both of them. The duo was forced out of the garden by the aggressive workers, Gupta alleged.
Meantime, Gupta contacted the owners and informed them about the incident in which workers humiliated and assaulted them through video calls. As per the instructions of the owners, Gupta along with Chakraborty managed to reach Kaliashahar on foot by walking around 10 km and lodged a Police compliant with the Kailashahar Police station. However, no one was arrested so far in this case.
After the reported hostility by the tea garden workers, the authority temporarily shut down the garden for an indefinite time.