A 22-year old man was lynched on Saturday on suspicion of mobile phone theft in the Calcutta suburb of Salt Lake on Saturday.

The victim has been identified as Prasen Mandal.

This is the second such incident in the city in two days. On Friday, police detained around 15 men after a man was lynched in the heart of Calcutta. The victim, identified only by his first name, Irshad, was employed with a TV repair shop in the Chandni Chowk area.

Irshad was also lynched on the suspicion of being a mobile phone thief.

Three persons have been arrested in connection with the Salt Lake case, police sources said.

According to the Bidhannagar Police, the three accused in the case had brutally assaulted Mandal and later took him to a private hospital in Salt Lake.

At the hospital, Mandal was declared dead. When the hospital staff questioned the three youths about what caused the death and the presence of injury marks on the deceased’s body, the three could not give any satisfactory reply, police sources said.

Screenshot from ABP Ananda Footage

The hospital authorities informed the police, who questioned them again on arrival. The three were later arrested and brought to the Electronics Complex police station where they are being interrogated.

Bowbazar incident probe

Police probing the lynching incident at the hostel on Nirmal Chandra Dey Street have found the footage from the closed-circuit television missing and suspect it was tampered with to destroy evidence, sources said.

The victim, Irshad, was taken to a room on the first floor, his hands and feet tied and he was beaten with a blunt object, which is suspected to be a cricket bat, according to police sources.

Fourteen inmates of the hostel have been arrested in connection with the case.

"This is a very unfortunate incident. It would appear that law and order is slipping out of the administration's grip," said Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, reacting to the newest murder.