A front view of Bulbul Market. Picture by Biju Boro

Oct. 13: There is growing resentment against the alleged collection of goonda tax in different parts of the city.

The shopkeepers of Bulbul Market near Athgaon today met to protest against the goonda tax allegedly levied on them by Kanhaiyalal Tiwari, son of the proprietor of Bajrangbali Market, situated across the street.

Tiwari, alleged to have a criminal background, has been extorting cartpullers and rickshawpullers since the past two years.

“Now they are asking us to stop carrying goods unless the shopowners also pay a certain amount per month. They have even threatened to kill us if we do not oblige,” a cartpuller alleged.

The Bulbul Market is a wholesale market having over 80 shops which sell cosmetics and stationery.

“Our work has come to a standstill since the past week as the thelawallas (cartpullers) refuse to carry our goods. Tiwari and his goons are indirectly demanding tax from us. They are threatening our workers, specially the thelawallas, with dire consequences if they carry our goods,” a shopowner alleged.

Both the businessmen and the cartpullers are incurring losses as their work has come to a standstill. “We will form an association and try to combat any such coercive practice. We will even seek police protection if required,” a trader said.

Recently, the Fancy Bazar Municipal Market Dealers’ Association has also started collecting papers in a bid to file a public interest litigation against the illegal vegetable market operating on T.R. Phookan Road in Machkhowa.

Sources in the association said they had met the executive engineer of the Assam PWD to procure a map of the area and other details to make its case stronger and foolproof.

The association had earlier alleged that the district administration and police were indifferent towards the growing lawlessness in the area.

However, Hiren Chandra Nath, superintendent of police (city) said, “In the Machkhowa case, I can challenge anybody who can prove that such illegal tax is being collected there. Some vested parties are creating an issue in order to legitimise the fact that they have illegally encroached upon the land there.”

The shopowners of Bulbul Market also alleged that the police were hand in glove with the alleged collectors of goonda tax.

Nath said, “They can always lodge a complaint even against the police officer concerned. We always take prompt action against any such complaints.”

He said on receiving a complaint, a police team, led by the deputy superintendent of police, had raided Tiwari’s house two days ago.

The association had called a 12-hour bandh of the Machkhowa vegetable market recently to protest against the growing goonda raj in the locality. The traders had alleged extortion by a Guwahati Municipal Corporation-appointed lessee Anup Dhar.

The association comprises shopkeepers who were affected by the 1989 fire. These traders had been shifted to Machkhowa with the GMC promising to rehabilitate them within eight months. But even after 14 years and intervention of the Gauhati High Court, the GMC Market complex remains incomplete.

Association sources said though there had been a perceptible change in collection of taxes, the lessees of the parallel market had managed to get their lease extended by five months from the high court. They had moved the court following the PWD’s move to evict them late last month.