The Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) on Friday condemned the alleged caning on workers of Jabuka tea estate by police at Sonari in Charaideo district of Upper Assam on Thursday.

Condemning the alleged attack, ACMS general secretary Rupesh Gowala said, “Many were injured when police lathicharged workers of the tea estate who had come out in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.”

All the tea gardens of Assam had shut down on Thursday as workers remained off duty in response to a bandh call by the Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association (ATTSA) against CAB, now Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

The ACMS had supported the bandh called by ATTSA.

ATTSA’s district publicity secretary Lakhindra Kurmi said, “We called the bandh in all the tea gardens of Assam in protest against CAB. We don’t support CAB because it is anti-Assamese. All the workers refrained from attending their duties.”

While ATTSA called the bandh on Thursday, Dibrugarh has been shut down since Monday, the day CAB was tabled in the Lok Sabha, with protests by the people and curfew imposed by the administration. The five-day shutdown has affected people’s lives and daily wage earners are having a tough time.

Shambhu Tanti, a worker, said, “I am a daily wage-earner. I am having immense problem in running my family as I could not go to work for the past five days because of strikes. We have no food to eat. I have never seen such a long bandh in my life.”