A 15-year-old boy was lynched over suspicions of theft in Karur on Sunday. Five men -- Muniappan, Muniandi, Selvakumar, Palanisamy and Manivel have been arrested by the police for attacking the boy.

According to reports, 15-year-old Balasubramani lived in Allaligoundanur village in Karur district with his widowed mother who is a farm worker and his sister. He had dropped out of school after class 8 and allegedly had the habit of indulging in petty thefts after his father’s death last year. He was suspected to have stolen Rs 3,000 from Palanisamy and a mobile phone from Muniandi on Saturday.

On Sunday, a few villagers informed Muniandi that they had seen the boy using the cell phone he lost. According to reports in Times of India, the five men went to his house on Sunday to question him regarding the thefts. The boy was alone in the house when the men came looking for him.

The attackers were reportedly not satisfied with the boy’s answers and hence tied him up to a pole inside the house and thrashed him. When the boy’s mother and sister returned home, they found an unconscious Balasubramani. As their attempts to wake him up failed, they alerted the Velliyanai police who came to the spot. The police then found the boy dead and conducted preliminary inquiry about the incident. They then sent the body to Karur Government Hospital for autopsy.

The police arrested the five men who attacked the boy and remanded them to judicial custody.

According to the police, the men thought that Balasubramani was just unconscious after the attack and untied him from the pole and left him at home. He succumbed to internal injuries resulting out of the attack.