A suspected thief was beaten up by a cop after he claimed that the police took bribes.
Two men, suspected to be petty thieves, were caught and thrashed by villagers at Polba, about 60 kilometres from Kolkata, on Tuesday morning. However, such situations are not unheard of as many people have been lynched in West Bengal due to mob fury.
But the thieves were also thrashed by the police.
The police was heckled by the villagers when they arrived as one of the thieves claimed that the law enforcers regularly took a
'hafta' from them - a commission or cut of the thieves' profits.
On hearing this, a furious officer in charge grabbed a
'lathi' and mercilessly beat the thief, who was tied to a tree.
The incident took place around 4 am when villagers noticed that a water pump was missing and saw four people, including a woman, loitering around. They were subsequently caught and two men were tied to trees and slapped around.
Polba has seen a spate of petty thefts lately - bicycles, water pumps and other machinery - and the police had done little to recover the stolen goods. Villagers claimed some stolen goods were found on the four caught this morning.
The police arrested all four accused and took them to the police station. The officer in charge dismissed charges of corruption that one of the suspected thieves had levelled against the force.