dibru tea body protest
Image: Northeast Now

Assam’s Dibrugarh district unit of Assam Tea Tribe Students’ Association (ATTSA) on Monday staged a protest in front of the deputy commissioner’s office demanding compensation for the hooch victims family and complete ban on illicit liquor from tea gardens area.

The protesters holding placards and banners raised slogan against the failure of the government to stop liquor from the tea garden areas.

The people of the tea garden areas consume ‘sulai’ everyday and every year deaths are reported from the tea garden areas of Assam. The government organizes awareness programme from time to time but it seems that the people of the tea garden cannot give up the habit of consuming ‘sulai’.

Lakhindra Kurmi, district publicity Secretary of ATTSA said, “Every year in the tea garden area after the consumption of hooch people die but the government is doing nothing to ban the illicit liquor. Due to the government failure and excise department’s inability the hooch tragedy took place in the Golaghat and Jorhat districts.”

Kurmi added, “We demand the government to pay Rs 10 lakh to each victims family as compensation. The people who died after consumption of hooch were poor garden labourers.”

He said on Tuesday they will organize a road blockade programme in Dibrugarh to press for their demand.

The students’ organization also submitted a memorandum to chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal through deputy commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha.

Avik Chakraborty is Northeast Now Correspondent in Dibrugarh. He can be reached at: [email protected]