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| Traders at the protest in Fancy Bazar on Wednesday. Picture by Eastern Projections |
Guwahati, June 11 : Traders of SRCB Road in Fancy Bazar today downed shutters and took to the streets in protest against the alleged harassment of a businessman by a team of sales tax sleuths on Tuesday.
Hundreds of traders came out on the road this morning to protest against the “harassment” which allegedly pushed Mangi Lal Sharma, a 40-year-old trader, to attempt suicide by consuming phenyl yesterday.
The protesters shouted slogans like “inspector raj murdabad” and demanded action against the erring officials.
A few shops in the area remained opened in the morning, but were later shut down by the protesters. Police and CRPF personnel were deployed in the area to prevent any untoward incident.
Sharma, who owns a cosmetics shop at Bulbul Market in Fancy Bazar, is now recuperating at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital.
Sharma’s employee Srikant Mahato said a six-member team of sales tax officials came to the shop and started checking the accounts books around 3pm yesterday.
Mahato claimed that the officials abused his employer and threatened to seize all his products after which Sharma made a bid to commit suicide by consuming phenyl. However, his life was saved as Mahato and some others immediately rushed him to the hospital.
A section of traders alleged that this was not an isolated case as tax officials regularly threatened businessmen and conducted raids on shops without any reason.
Rupam Goswami, the convenor of Assam Chamber of Commerce, demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.
Goswami alleged that the tax officials behaved improperly during inspections and forced the traders to make disclosures on the spot.
“This is not the first incident of its kind. Similar incidents have happened in the past. The business community has decided not to take such harassment lying down anymore,” he said.
“We have strong reasons to believe that inhuman behaviour of the sales tax officials forced Sharma to attempt suicide. We have submitted a memorandum to Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner Prateek Hajela, demanding a judicial inquiry into the incident. We are also planning to meet chief minister Tarun Gogoi over this issue,” he added.
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