A 46-year-old Dalit man was beaten to death over drawing of water from a tubewell in Rajasthan's Jodhpur, police said on Monday.
The accused also hurled casteist slurs at Kishanlal Bheel (46), from Bhomiyaji ki Ghati in Soorsagar, and did not allow his family members to take him to a hospital, his brother Ashok alleged.
It was only after police reached the spot that the seriously injured man was hospitalised where he succumbed to injuries, he added.
Police have so far detained three people -- Shakeel, Nasir, and Bablu -- and booked them under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, police said.
The search for others involved in the incident is on, SHO, Soorsagar Police Station, Gautam Dotasara said.
Demanding immediate arrest of all accused as well as financial compensation and a government job for the next of kin, Bheel's family and community members staged a protest and refused perform his last rites.
"We have been in conversation with the demonstrators so that the postmortem can be done and the body be handed over to the family for funeral," said Dotasara.
Ashok alleged that some of the locals, including the three detained, have control over the tubewell installed in the locality. They have also fitted a pump on it and do not let others to use it.
"On Sunday night, Kishanlal had gone to the tubewell for water but these people pushed him away and hurled casteist slurs at him," Ashok alleged.
Soon after he returned home, some people, including Nasir, Shakeel and Bablu, attacked our house and beat up Bheel and his son with rods and sticks, Ashok said.