From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: At least fourteen persons were injured , three of them seriously, when police had to open fire to control a mob of protestors in Assam’s silk town Sualkuchi near Guwahati which is known as Manchester of the East because of the unique brand of resplendent mulberry silk mekhela-chadar (traditional dress of Assamese women) produced by weavers there.
The mob of protestors. mostly mulberry silk products traders and weavers from the area, on a spree of raiding business houses and burning of heaps of ‘fake silk dress materials’ that were allegedly being traded by a section of unscrupulous traders at cheaper price thereby spoiling the market of traditional genuine silk products from Sualkuchi.
As clashes ensued in the area between the protestors and their targets, police and paramilitary personnel were rushed to the town to control the situation.
Police first resorted to lathi charge and bursting of teargas shells but resorted to firing when the situation was spinning out of control with some of the protestors pelting stones on men in uniform.
A senior official informed that indefinite curfew was clamped in Sualkuchi town and Army had been deployed to bring the situation under total control. He informed that three of the injured were policemen including an additional SP.
Three other seriously injured persons with bullet injuries were rushed to Guwahat Medical College Hospital.
Tension was palpable in the silk town since Friday when protestors, mostly weavers and silk merchants from the silk town, seized a large volume of ‘fake silk dress materials’ which were being sold by some unscrupulous traders in the town as ‘Sulakuchi-made mulberry silk dresses’, and set those on fire.
Local Congress MLA and Assam health and education minister Dr Himantan Bishwa Sarma promised to take action against those unscrupulous traders who are trading to fake silk yarns and garments bringing bad name to the genuine products from Sulakuchi looms. However, the BJP’s member of Parliament representing Guwahati Lok Sabha constituency, Mrs Bijoya Chakraborty blamed the utter failure of the incumbent
Congress government in Assam towards setting up of a ‘yarn bank’ in Sualkuchi and stated that the traditional silk garments producers from Sualkuchi were being cheated by private yarn merchants who are dictating terms in absence of a government yarn bank.
She pointed out that Sualkuchi population is self-sufficient because of their traditional business in mulberry silk garments and no educated youth from the area go hunting government jobs as they don’t need it.
