A unidentified man was allegedly beaten to death by a group of seven persons on suspicion of being a thief in Gujarat's Jamnagar district, police said on Monday.
The incident took place at Moti Khavdi village on Sunday following which three of the accused were arrested, an official at Medhpar police station said.
The man, who was apparently mentally unstable and around 35 years of age, tried to enter the house in which the accused stayed by jumping the compound wall and breaking its window on Sunday morning, he said.
He then hurled abuses at them following which the accused, suspecting that the man was a thief, thrashed him with wooden and plastic sticks, killing him on the spot, the official said.
The accused worked as supervisors at a private fabrication factory nearby and lived in a rented house.
When they informed their senior at the factory about the incident, he rushed to the spot and called the police.
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Later, the police arrested three of the accused, Prabhakar Tripathi (native of Deoria in Uttar Pradesh), Yogesh Singh (from Sultanpur in UP) and Manoj Singh (hailing from Bihar), he said.
Search was on for four others accused, Sahil Ansari, Prakash Kumar, Santosh Maurya, and Shivaji Uadav, he said.
An FIR was lodged on Sunday evening against the seven accused under various IPC Sections, including 302 (murder), 143 (unlawful assembly), 147, 148 (rioting) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and the Gujarat Police Act.