Police have detained around 15 men after a man was lynched in the heart of Calcutta on Friday.

The victim, identified only by his first name, Irshad, was employed with a TV repair shop in the Chandni Chowk area.

According to city police sources, the mobile phone of a resident of a hostel on Nirmal Chandra street, located in Bowbazar police station limits, was stolen. A police complaint was lodged in connection with the theft.

On Friday morning, some of the residents around the hostel spotted Irshad in the street and suspected him to be a thief. They informed the residents of the hostel.

“The victim was picked up from the pavement and taken to a room upstairs where his hands and feet were tied and he was brutally beaten,” said a senior officer of the Muchipara police station, who requested anonymity.

A call was made to the Bowbazar police station. When a police team reached the hostel to probe, the main gate was locked. Another team from the Muchipara police station, too, reached the spot.

The police teams forced the gate open and rescued the victim, who was covered in blood. Doctors at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital declared the victim as dead on arrival.

A preliminary post-mortem report revealed injuries in the head, chest, arms and legs.

The wife of the victim, a resident of Belgachhia, later filed a complaint, based on which an investigation has been started and the hostel inmates – around 15 of them – are being interrogated.

“We have to establish how many of the inmates were present when the incident happened and identify those involved in the assault,” said a senior officer.

A day before Irshad was lynched, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had referred to the law and order situation in the state. At a meeting to find a solution for the encroachment problem in Calcutta and the rest of the state, she spoke about the murder of a lawmaker from Bangladesh and a firing incident in Kharagpur.

She made no mention of the incidents of men and women being beaten up on suspicion of being child kidnappers, reported in the past week from Barasat, Khardah, Ashoknagar, Bongaon and Gaighata.