Workers at Dhelakhat Tea Estate in Tinsukia district staged a three-hour protest outside Barekuri Police Station, demanding a crackdown on thieves they say have been plucking green leaf and cutting down bushes on the garden through this plucking season.

The Dhelakhat unit of the Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha organised the demonstration. Raju Sahu, the union's Panitola branch secretary and a former MLA, said unauthorised plucking, leaf theft, and the cutting of bushes had been reported from multiple areas of the garden, and that some workers had been coerced or influenced into taking part, The Assam Tribune reported.

Sahu called the losses to the garden significant and demanded immediate action against those responsible, intensified surveillance from the district administration and police, and stronger regulatory measures to protect both workers and management. The union warned it would consider a wider "democratic movement" if the thefts continued unaddressed.

Green leaf is the garden's raw material and the basis of a picker's daily wage target, so leaf pulled off the bush by outsiders or by workers under pressure does not reach the factory, and does not count toward the pay a legitimate picker is due. Cutting the bushes themselves does lasting damage: a mature tea bush takes years to recover full yield after being cut back.

Sources: The Assam Tribune, "Green tea leaf theft sparks protest in Tinsukia tea estate, ACMS seeks crackdown".