Twenty-one tea plantation workers, including four women, were burned to death over a labour dispute in eastern India yesterday.
Police said that angry tribespeople surrounded the house of a trade union leader, Tarakeshwar Lohar, in West Bengal's Dalgaon tea estate and set it on fire killing him and his supporters who were trapped inside.
The tea estate is approximately 600km from Calcutta, capital of West Bengal state.
Bhupinder Singh, the inspector-general of police, said the mob was apparently enraged by Lohar's failure to stop the recruitment by the tea plantation's management of non-tribals from adjoining Bihar province.
Mr Singh said that 150 people had been arrested and scores of swords and knives seized by armed police at the site of the blaze.
Firemen doused the flames and pulled the bodies of victims, which had been charred beyond recognition, from the debris.