Assam: Tea estate owner, wife burnt to death by workers
December 26, 2012 22:25 IST
A tea estate owner and his wife were burnt alive by irate workers, who set their bungalow and two vehicles on fire on Wednesday.
The tea garden had been facing management and labour problems. The dispute aggravated during the last few days after the garden management served a notice to quit to 10 labourers two days ago and asked them to vacate their residential quarters. An FIR was also lodged by the tea garden management, following which the police had picked up three labourers on Wednesday morning.
The tea state is located in Bordumsa in Tinsukia district eastern Assam after a dispute with labourers.
Police recovered the charred bodies of the tea estate owner Mridul Kumar Bhattacharrya and his wife Rita from the bungalow.
An official source informed that over 500 irate tea estate workers gheraoed the bungalow and set it ablaze at 4.30 pm on Wednesday.
Four other persons have been reported missing. The manager of the tea garden and his wife were also in the bungalow when the mob attacked.
Two years ago, Bhattacharyya, who is the director of MBK Plantations, had landed in a similar trouble with labourers when a mob set on fire the factory of another estate owned by him at Rani on the outskirts of Guwahati.
The incident happened after Bhattacharyya had allegedly shot dead a school student and injured four others as he tried to scare away an angry mob that had gathered near his bungalow to protest against an assault a woman on March 22 last year.
K Anurag in Guwahati
