A 26-year-old youth accused of theft was allegedly lynched by a mob at a village in Araria district of Bihar in the early hours of Sunday.

The incident occurred at Chakai village under Jokihat police station, around 340km northeast of the state capital.

The victim, identified as Muhammad Ismail, a resident of Balua village under neighbouring Mahalgaon police station, neither had past criminal record nor were any stolen goods recovered from him.

Ismail had allegedly entered the house of Domar Yadav during the early hours of Sunday. The family members woke up and raised an alarm following which he tried to escape. Other villagers also joined in the chase. Ismail was caught and brought back to the house that he had allegedly entered, was tied to a post and brutally thrashed.

Ismail fell unconscious after some time and a few villagers shifted him to the local primary health centre, where he died during treatment.

Jokihat station house officer Vikas Kumar Azad said the police rushed to the village after getting information about the incident and also sent the body for post-mortem.

Bihar has witnessed several mob-lynching incidents, especially over theft allegations, in the last couple of years.

Araria sub-divisional police officer Pushkar Kumar denied that it was an incident of mob lynching. “It seems he (Ismail) had gone there to steal things. The people living in the house caught him while some other villagers also joined. They thrashed him following which he died while undergoing treatment at a government hospital,” he said.

“We have registered an FIR in which 15 people have been accused of killing the youth. We have arrested Nitish Kumar and Rupesh Kumar. They are the prime accused in the case and are residents of the house in which the deceased had broken in,” Pushkar told The Telegraph.

He also said that the victim’s name was not in the records of the police stations in the area, but efforts were on to check whether it was present in other police stations in the district.

The family members of Ismail have alleged there was a conspiracy behind his death. “My son had a dispute over the construction of a road in the village. Some people opposed to him conspired to kill him,” Ismail’s father Muhammad Shoaib told reporters.