In a horrific incident, hundreds of tea plantation workers have burnt alive the owner of a tea garden and his wife in the northeastern Indian state of Assam late Wednesday night, a senior police official said Thursday.

"The owner of MKB tea estate, located in the Kulapatha area, Mridul Kumar Bhattacharya, and his wife Rita, were inside their bungalow when an angry mob of around 200 laborers set it on fire. Both were charred to death," the official said.

Preliminary probe has revealed that the incident was a fallout of a clash between the laborers and the management for the past two weeks.

"Though there were tensions for the last two weeks, the management Wednesday asked some workers to leave their accommodation, following which the laborers torched their boss's bungalow and also set on fire their two vehicles," the official said.

Three people have been arrested in connection with the incident. "A massive manhunt has been launched to track down all the culprits," he added.

The state government has ordered a high-level probe into the incident. "This is an unfortunate incident. There was some labor trouble in the tea garden area, we are investigating," state's Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told the media.

There are around 800 tea gardens in Assam, which produce over half of India's total tea output.