An 11-year-old boy was allegedly beheaded by a man, suspected to be mentally unstable, in the Begusarai district of Bihar on Saturday.

The incident occurred at Dwarkapur village under the Mansoorchak police station and the deceased has been identified as Ankush Kumar. He was playing with other kids in an orchard when one Vijay Kumar allegedly attacked and beheaded him with a heavy steel chopper.

“We rushed to the spot after there was a commotion in the village about somebody having been beheaded, and saw that it was our son Ankush. His body was lying there in two parts in the orchard,” the deceased boy’s father Anil Kumar Mahto told reporters.

The villagers enquired with the other children playing with the dead boy and started looking for Vijay. He was found sharpening the chopper at a place on the outskirts of the village.

“We tried to nab him, but he attacked us with the chopper. One of my nephews and two other people were injured in it. We somehow captured him. We have no idea why he killed my son. We had no enmity with him,” Mahto said.

He was thrashed by the villagers when the police reached the village and rescued him.

“We got information about the beheading of a boy around 2:50pm on Saturday and a team of our officials rushed there. The villagers had apprehended the suspect and were trying to thrash him. Our officials rescued him. A sharp-edged steel weapon suspected to have been used in the crime has been seized and handed over to the forensic lab,” Begusarai SP Maneesh said.

The boy’s body was sent to Begusarai district hospital for post-mortem while the accused was given first aid and later produced in the court.