The manager’s bungalow at Borhat tea estate. Picture by Shankarlal Agarwal

Jorhat, Dec. 30: An indefinite lockout was today declared at Borhat tea estate where irate labourers had ransacked the bungalows of the manager and the doctor yesterday.

The workers were angry over the death of a woman worker, who, they alleged, had died because of the management’s negligence. Police resorted to a lathicharge and blank firing to quell the mob. At least 10 labourers and several police personnel were injured in the fracas. Four labourers were admitted to the Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh while garden executives and the doctor were evacuated from the estate amid tight security.

The garden, under Amalgamated Plantations Pvt Ltd, falls under Charaideo subdivision in Sivasagar district of Assam.

Sivasagar deputy commissioner Jatindra Lahkar said a magistrate had been sent to the tea estate today to take stock of the situation. “The situation is under control but tension prevails,” he said. A police picket has also been posted in the garden.

The Assam Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA) has set a 24-hour deadline for the garden authorities to lift the lockout, failing which it has threatened to launch a series of agitations.

“The management has no right to call a lockout. The labourers will have to be paid their daily wages for each day the estate remains closed,” the secretary of the Sonari unit of ATTSA, Ganesh Gowala, said.

The association also demanded a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of Raimati Majhi, 60, a permanent worker of the garden who died around 7pm on Wednesday, and Rs 10,000 each to the injured labourers.

“Raimati Tanti died because of total negligence on the part of the management. Yesterday’s incident could have been averted had the management taken a positive step by discussing the matter with the labourers. Instead, they called the police who beat up the labourers,” the president of the Sonari unit of ATTSA, Sahadev Dhanowar, said.

Raimati had been released a few days ago from the garden hospital and advised rest by the doctor. But the management allegedly asked her to join work immediately or have her name struck off the list of regular workers. After working for two days, Raimati collapsed and was taken to the hospital where she was declared dead. Her body was cremated today.