patna

Updated: Jun 05, 2019 23:47 IST

At least six persons were injured when a group of tribals shot arrows and hurled stones at the employees of a tea garden at Dhalubari village of Kishanganj district on Wednesday.

The incident took place when the tribals started rituals on the tea garden land, which they had earlier “captured”. Upon getting information, owners and employees of the tea garden reached the spot and tried to stop them. Angry tribals retaliated and attacked them with arrows.

District magistrate Himanshu Sharma and SP Kumar Ashish soon reached the spot with reinforcements to bring the situation under control.

Tribals also pelted stones on the police and damaged their vehicles.

Sharma said the injured had been admitted to MGM Hospital, Kishanganj, where one of them was said to be critical. He said the police later got the land vacated from tribals.

According to police, a few months back, tribals had forcibly encroached the tea garden’s land. Usually, tribals enter into the tea gardens in large numbers with sharp weapons in the night to encroach land.

A district administration official said the tribals were targeting the “Bhoodan” land that had been earlier bought by tea garden owners at a reasonable rate.

After receiving repeated complaints from tea garden owners, the district administration had earlier called a meeting of owners and Bhoodan movement leaders in Kishanganj. The administration had planned to go in for fresh measurement of land and asked both the parties to maintain calm.

On May 30, the circle officer of Thakurganj, Uday Krishna Yadav, also held a meeting with tribal leaders and assured to distribute 5 decimal land among 31 families, but the tribals were not happy. They alleged that the land for their habitation was not good and demanded a bigha of land.

Police said the tribals had, on March 10, captured the tea garden, which is owned by Mohammad Anwarul.

On May 16, tribals also attacked employees of tea garden and injured then. They also set a blaze Pothia police station in Kishanganj.