A 20-year-old Dalit man was beaten up in public by a group in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur Dehat district, NDTV reported on Saturday. The police said the incident took place on Thursday.

In videos widely shared on social media, a group of men can be seen brutally punching the man, pulling his hair, dragging him on the ground and beating him with sticks. The assailants also asked the man to tell them his caste, after which the group continued to assault him.

One of the videos showed the Dalit man being tied to a tree as the accused hit him in his private parts. The Dalit man can be heard appealing with the group to stop the assault, but the attackers continue to beat him up.

The family of the Dalit man said he has been admitted to Lala Lajpat Hospital in Kanpur. The man, a resident of the Sawan Kheda area of the district, is a painter.

The police have lodged a first information report against three named and six unidentified people, reported The Times of India. One person has been arrested in connection with the incident, the police said.

“An FIR under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, besides SC/ST Act [Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989] has been lodged,” said inspector Akbarpur Tulsiram Pandey.

Kanpur Dehat Additional Superintendent of Police Ghanshyam Chaurasiya told NDTV that they were looking for two more people seen beating the Dalit youth in the videos. “We are trying to find out their details and teams have been formed to arrest them,” he said.

Chaurasiya added that a case was registered soon after they were informed about the videos. However, the family members of the Dailt man alleged that the police had initially refused to register an FIR.

The villagers told the police that the man had an affair with a woman while he was working as a painter in her house.

Opposition parties have criticised the Uttar Pradesh government over violence during the filing of nominations for block panchayat heads elections. In one incident in Lakhimpur Kheri, two men were seen pulling a Samajwadi Party worker’s sari as she was entering a nomination centre.

The men have been arrested and six officials suspended in connection with the incident.