Members of a gang that was accused of taking over portions of a tea estate run by the B.K. Birla Group in North Dinajpur district allegedly waylaid the garden’s manager and assaulted him on Saturday evening in retaliation for his police complaint against the theft of tea leaves.

Prashant Kumar, the 50-year-old manager of Kumarika tea estate, is under treatment at a private nursing home in Siliguri.

Kumar was assaulted days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee had expressed her anguish over the activities of land mafias in the state.

Sources said Kumar had been returning to his bungalow in his vehicle when a group of people intercepted his car. The garden is located in the Islampur block.

“In a pre-planned manner, they suddenly attacked me with a view to murder me… they hit me with an iron road with a view to kill me,” read the complaint filed by the manager at the Islampur police station on Saturday.

The attackers, he said, threatened him with dire consequences if he didn’t withdraw the police complaint he had filed against them last month at the Islampur police station.

“On June 26, he filed a complaint with the police against these people for stealing tea leaves from the garden. We want the police and the administration to take specific steps,” said an official of Jay Shree Tea & Industries Limited owned by the Calcutta-based B.K. Birla Group.

Jay Shree Tea, sources said, owns five tea estates in Darjeeling, three in the Terai and the Dooars, 10 in Assam and two in south India.

Kumarika, where the incident happened, is a 30-year-old garden and employs around 1,200 workers.

According to the Jay Shree Tea official, groups of land grabbers, including some non-workers who stay in the Kumarika garden, mushroomed in the area in the past few years.

“These groups have grabbed various patches of tea plantations in our garden. Altogether, around 60 hectares of plantation area are under their control and they make money by selling tea leaves. These syndicates always try to grab more tea garden land to increase their earnings,” he said.

The official pointed out that when the garden had started, it had a plantation area of around 230 hectares.

“But now, it has been reduced to 170 hectares. We are running the garden with our best efforts but incidents like stealing tea leaves and attacking the manager are affecting the estate’s regular functioning,” the official added.

Representatives of the Indian Tea Association (ITA), the largest association of tea planters in India of which the company is a member, have expressed concern over the assault on the manager.

“The garden management has intimated the administration about the encroachment on plantation areas but nothing effective has been done so far to address the issue. Now, the manager is attacked which is most unfortunate. The garden employs hundreds of people. Such activities should stop,” said Rana Dey, the secretary of the Terai branch of the ITA.

Kumar, police sources said, has named four persons in Saturday’s complaint.

“We received a complaint on the attack on the estate manager. During the preliminary inquiry, it has been found that the management of the garden has problems with local people on certain issues. A case has been registered and the investigation is in progress,” Joby Thomas, the superintendent of police of Islampur district, said.

Additional reporting by Kousik Sen in Raiganj