A Muslim youth who worked in a Calcutta restaurant was killed and his two companions seriously injured when a mob branded them thieves and attacked them in Bihar’s Gaya in the early hours of Thursday.

The limbs of the slain Muhammad Babar, 28, who was to be married in two months, “had been twisted like crushed sugarcane and his neck seemed to have been pierced with a rod or stake”, his elder brother Saddam Hussain said.

Babar had said before his death that the three youths were travelling in an SUV and had stopped at a small bridge near Diha village to prepare khaini (tobacco for chewing), a police officer said.

It was then that they were attacked, the police officer said on the condition of anonymity. He said the injured — Muhammad Sajid and Muhammad Rukmuddin — had corroborated this. “The villagers accused them of being thieves and beat them brutally,” the officer said.

Babar, a biryani cook in Calcutta, had returned home to Karisarai village, around 6km from Diha, to get the house painted and attend to other wedding preparations, the elder brother said.

Saddam, an engineer with Hindustan Petroleum in Mumbai who arrived home after learning of the lynching, said the three youths were returning from a feast at another village when they were attacked.

They had borrowed the SUV from a neighbour, he added. He said Babar was buried on Friday after the body was handed over to the family on completion of the post-mortem.

Some police sources claimed the three youths had come to Diha, about 100km south of Patna, with the “intention of committing crime”, and the villagers, angry about a series of recent thefts, caught and thrashed them.

These officers claimed that three bullets, a country-made bomb, a dagger and a chopper had been found inside the SUV.

They added that the two injured men faced criminal cases, including those of attempt to murder and assault, lodged in 2016 and 2017. Babar had no criminal charges against him.

“My nephew was falsely accused of theft and killed. We want justice,” Babar’s uncle Afroz Alam told reporters.

Babar’s family has demanded the immediate arrest of the killers and a compensation of Rs 20 lakh.

The police have themselves registered a case of murder against unknown people, and the families of the injured men have lodged an FIR for assault.

“A special investigation team has been constituted under the assistant superintendent of police, law and order, to arrest the people involved in the incident,” Gaya senior superintendent of police Ashish Bharti said.

A statement issued by Gaya police said: “The Belaganj station house officer rescued the three persons from the village on Thursday and dispatched them to the primary health centre in the area for treatment. The doctors there referred them to ANMMCH (Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital, in Gaya town) for better treatment.”

It said Babar was declared dead at the hospital. Sources said the injured had been shifted to the Patna Medical College and Hospital.