Three men in Maharashtra’s Palghar district were on Thursday beaten to death by a group of villagers on suspicion that they were thieves, PTI reported. The police have not identified the victims yet. Thirty persons have been detained, Kasa police station inspector Anandrao Kale said.

The police said that the three men were coming from Mumbai in a van on Thursday night when they were stopped on the Dhabadi-Khanvel road near Gadchinchale village by local residents. They were pulled out of their van and attacked with stones. The police were alerted about the incident around midnight.

The group of villagers also attacked policemen. “The mob was strong and we tried to save the passengers but it also targeted us and started to pelt stones,” inspector Kale said, according to Hindustan Times. “We rushed them [the three men] to the Kasa government hospital but they were declared dead before admission.”

Three police officers were injured, The Indian Express reported.

The police have filed cases against unidentified people under Sections 302 (murder) and 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code. Section 188 has been invoked because a nationwide lockdown is in place to control the spread of coronavirus.