DIBRUGARH: A week-long agitation over allegedly delayed compensation to families affected by the Baghjan oil well blowout in Assam's Tinsukia flared up on Saturday, leaving five civilians and four cops injured in a hail of rubber bullets, tear gas shells and retaliatory stone-pelting by the protesters.
The police said they used tear gas and rubber bullets only when the situation threatened to spiral out of control. The protesters, who are residents of the Baghjan area, had been squatting on the road leading to the oilfield every day for a week to demand release of the full quantum of compensation fixed by the National Green Tribunal.