Dacoity at Hattigor

 by Bhupendra (Bob) Singh 

Hattigor Burra Bungalow ( pix by Chumki Bhattacharyya )

I was Senior Manager of Hattigor Tea Estate, the biggest estate belonging to Tata Tea Ltd., in Mangaldai Dist. Assam from 1986 to 1991. It was a big estate, about 1000 hectares under tea and producing about 2.2 million kgs of tea. There were two divisions, Hattigor and Khoirabari, the latter being the bigger one. The estate employed about 3000 labour during the season. There was a PWD road which bisected the two divisions. The factory was on the Hattigor side and the Manager's office about 200 meters from the factory on the Khirabari side. The garden was in middle of Bodo country and at that time the agitation was in full swing. 

One afternoon on a weekly labour payday I was sitting in my office when there was a commotion outside and Krany Babu (head clerk) came and informed that dacoits had attacked the place where the labour payment was going on, both in Hattigor and Khoirabari. I got into my car and drove 100 meters to where the Khoirabari workers were being paid.

Apparently two men had arrived on a motor bike and while one kept sitting on it, the other got down and threatened the staff with a locally made pistol. He then started filling his bag with cash. In the meantime, one of the workers threw a bamboo shaft at the person sitting on the bike. He got scared, and after letting go of the bike, he jumped over the fence and tried to escape. At that time in Khoirabari section no. 4, the old tea bushes had been uprooted and it was under guatemala grass. 

The man must have thought he would hide there and escape from the other side. However, Gojen Bardoloi, the Senior Assistant Manager, got some labour to encircle the section and these guys quickly came with bows and arrows. Seeing this, person filling the bag with the money panicked and started running from there. On the way he lost the bag! That was retrieved by a member of the staff, but some money had fallen out of the bag and the shopkeepers holding the local bazaar on the PWD road pocketed it. The dacoit hiding in the grass was injured with an arrow shot by one of the workers, caught, and beaten up badly by the angry workers before being brought to the factory.

In the meanwhile, with the help of some workers, I surrounded the person who had escaped with the bag of money - just a few tea sections down the road - and though he was pointing his country made pistol at us we managed to get hold of him and take him to the factory. At the same time two other dacoits struck at Hattigor Division where labour was being paid, and before the Assistant Sanjay Sablok could reach there, they had made off with a bag of money. He did give them chase on his motor bike and in turn, they fired at him and missed, but he could not catch them. 

In the absence of telephone connectivity in those days, I took off immediately in my car to Paneri Police station ( about 20 kms away ) to inform them of the dacoity. The police were very helpful and came at once to the garden to take stock of the situation. However, the dacoit who was caught first was so badly beaten up by the workers that he died in police custody. The police could not file a case of murder against anyone, as there was a mob of few hundred people; against whom would they file the FIR?! 

We lost about Rs. 75,000/- which could be claimed back from the Insurance Company.

 Meet the writer: 

Bhupendra (Bob) Singh 

After graduating from Mayo College, Ajmer, I joined tea in May 1959, with James Finlay & Co., Ltd. at their Hattigor T E in Assam. The company changed hands and became Tata Finlays and then later Tata Tea Ltd. Having served in many gardens in Assam as Assistant Manager and later as Manager since 1974, was lastly transferred to Dam Dim T E in Dooars in 1991. In my last year with Tata Tea, I was posted to Delhi to look after their rice exports to the Middle-East.

A keen student of history, fond of outdoor games and shooting, we enjoyed our days in tea with my wife Teeka and two daughters Harsha and Raksha, who still remember their good days in the gardens.

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