A mob attacked a Nigerian man on a street in New Delhi on Monday after he allegedly assaulted officials who prosecuted him for breaking traffic rules, reports said.

The incident took place near the Dwarka Mod metro station on the Najafgarh Road. A video of the incident surfaced on social media on Wednesday, following which the police filed a case against the man and ordered an inquiry into the mob violence, the Hindustan Times reported on Friday.

The video of the incident showed a mob thrashing the Nigerian man, shouting “maro, maro” (beat him, beat him). At one point, his t-shirt appeared to have been torn as a result of the assault. However, the clip does not reveal the sequence of events before the assault began.

“Prince was asked to produce the documents of the scooter but he tried to flee,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said. “When the traffic policemen tried to stop him, he caught one of them by his collar and manhandled him. The public intervened after that and the traffic policemen made a call to the police control room at around 11 am.”

Sarjeet, a security guard who works near the site of the attack, claimed Prince was “speaking a lot” when the traffic police tried to stop him. “He was calling the police ‘paagal’ [mad],” the guard said. “The situation escalated when a policeman tried to take away his scooter keys and he responded by catching the policeman’s collar. The policemen began hitting him after that and the public joined in.”

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There have been mob attacks on Nigerians in Delhi in the past. In 2017, a mob tied a Nigerian man to a pole in a residential locality in Malviya Nagar in South Delhi. He had been accused of theft.

In March, four Nigerian students were attacked by a group of residents in a locality in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The attack followed a protest that was organised after a Class 12 student in the area had died of a suspected drug overdose and five Nigerian students were booked for murder.