The crime spot (Image credits: ANI)
A 23-year-old Muslim man was killed in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district on Thursday.
The police have identified the victim as Fazil. According to officials, he was stabbed to death by unidentified men in Mangaluru's Surathkal area.
Fazil was talking to an acquaintance when the assailants stepped out of a car and ran towards him, the police said.
CCTV footage from the lane showed the men, their faces covered with black cloth masks, attacking the man outside a clothing store. He was repeatedly hit with a stick and stabbed. Even after he collapsed and a mannequin fell on top of him, one of the men continued to hit him.
"Three to four people came and assaulted him (and) this is the information we have. We will be taking up a case within Surathkal police station limits. This area is considered to be very sensitive,"N Shashi Kumar, Mangaluru city police commissioner, said, adding that prohibitory orders will be imposed in the area.
The savage attack, caught on a CCTV camera, took place amid tension in the district over the killing of BJP youth wing leader Praveen Nettaru on Tuesday night.
Nettaru, a 32-year-old leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) youth wing, was hacked to death by unidentified assailants late on Tuesday in the district's Bellare village. Two men with suspected links to the Popular Front of India (PFI) were arrested in connection with the murder on Thursday, police said.
Officials maintained that the motive behind Fazil's murder was immediately not clear.
"It is very premature to say that there is any connection with any other incident. We will fairly investigate and if at all there is any connection," Kumar said.