KOLKATA: A mob of doctors killed a suspected thief at a medical college in India by tying him up and slashing his penis with a razor, in a case of vigilante justice, police said Monday.

Authorities have ordered an inquiry into the attack in the eastern city of Kolkata in which the 30-year-old man was beaten with bamboo sticks and slashed on Sunday, a senior police officer said.

“Preliminary inquiries have revealed that nearly a dozen junior doctors picked up the man on suspicion of stealing mobile phones,” Kolkata's deputy police commissioner Dhrubajyoti De said.

They dragged him into a room at the state-run Nilratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, tied him to a pillar and carried out the attack, before leaving him to die.

“Some of them even slashed him on his private parts,” De told AFP, adding that labourers working nearby alerted police to the attack.

“Police found the man lying in a pool of blood. A razor was also seized from the spot,” he said.

“The kind of wounds on his body bear the marks of inhumane torture,” he told AFP, saying the unidentified man was declared dead on arrival in the emergency room.

State deputy health minister Chandrima Bhattacharya ordered an inquiry, describing the incident as “very shocking”.

“The government will not tolerate such kinds of inhumane behaviour. We have ordered an inquiry into the incident. The committee was asked to submit the report in 24 hours,” she said.

Two people have been detained for questioning but no arrests made.