Paghar (Maharashtra), Apr 17 (IANS): Three unidentified persons were brutally beaten to death late on Thursday night by some villagers here who suspected them to be thieves, Palghar police said on Friday.

According to Inspector Anandrao Kale of Kasa Police Station, the incident took place around 10 p.m., but the police came across their bodies only early today.

The trio - whose identities have yet to be established, were travelling from Mumbai in a car and they were stopped on the Dhabadi-Khanvel Road near Gadchinchle village.

Suspecting them to be thieves, the angry villagers surrounded the vehicle, dragged them out and brutally thrashed with sticks, stones and other objects. They left them there and decamped.

Hours later, on learning of the incident, the police rushed there to find the three lying dead in a pool of blood with their car badly damaged. Their bodies have been sent for autopsy to a government hospital in Palghar.

"We have registered offences of murder, armed rioting, violating lockdown orders and other charges against unidentified persons. No arrests are made so far and further investigations are on," Kale told mediapersons.

The incident occurred even as Maharashtra is currently under a lockdown till May 3 in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, with near-total restrictions on movement or assembly of people.