The 30-year-old was beaten with sticks
A cleric of a mosque in Rajasthan's Ajmer has been allegedly beaten to death by three masked men, police said.
The incident took place on Saturday when the victim, Mohammad Mahir, was sleeping with six children in the mosque located in Ramganj's Kanchan Nagar.
The accused allegedly entered the mosque and attacked the 30-year-old cleric, a resident of Rampura in Uttar Pradesh, with sticks, the police said.
As the boys started screaming for help, the unknown men also threatened to kill them. They also took away the cleric's mobile phone so that the children could not call for help.
After the accused fled, the children came out of the mosque and informed their neighbors.
The police said that so far no arrest has been made and efforts are on to identify and arrest the accused.
"The reasons for the murder have not been revealed yet. The police are going through the CCTV footage from the area," Ramganj police station in-charge Ravindra Khinchi said.
A case has been registered under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, he said.