A man was beaten to death on Monday morning by a group of villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district for allegedly murdering his rival who was a school teacher by profession. The man was tortured in the presence of several policemen before being killed.

The video of the incident has gone viral on social media where the villagers are seen beating the man with sticks in the presence of some cops. However, heavy police force from Taraisujan police station with cops wearing riot gears was deployed in Rampur Bangra village where the incident occurred to tackle the situation.

Some cops tried to control the crowd and calm down the situation by stopping the villagers but they did not stop torturing the man even when he was lying unconscious. Taraisujan police station which was in charge of the case has been suspended for dereliction of duty.

By the time, the attackers stopped, the man was lying in a pool of blood with his head smacked in and the ground was smothered with blood. After the video was leaked online, netizens are bashing the police officials for showing negligence and their failure to prevent a murder.

According to the police officials, the man identified as Ariman Yadav belonged from Gorakhpur and he visited the Kushinagar village in search of a school teacher named Sudhir Kumar Singh alias Guddu Singh who he claimed to be his brother’s friend. He went to his house and was having tea while Singh was taking a shower. As soon as Singh came out, Yadav took out his father’s gun and shot him dead. However, the reason for the murder is still unknown.

Then while he was trying to escape, the villagers spotted the man following which he climbed the terrace of the house, raised the gun and started firing at the villagers to keep them away.

According to a police officer, the police force followed the man to the terrace but the man ran away and was caught by the villagers who brutally attacked him.

‘The cops climbed the terrace and asked him to surrender. There was an exchange of fire and then the man climbed down from the terrace and tried to bolt himself inside a room. A crowd pounced on him and before the cops could climb down from the terrace, he was beaten so much he died,’ NDTV quoted Vinod Mishra, police chief of the district as saying.

Later, a video was released which showed the man was in police custody before the villagers caught him and attacked him with stones.

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