A police constable was burnt alive by an irate mob in a remote village of Baric district in eastern Uttar Pradesh around midnight of Wednesday and Thursday.

According to delayed information reaching the state headquarters in Lucknow, 'the mob was reacting violently to the arrest of four villagers in connection with a cow slaughter incident on Sunday'.

In view of a possible communal flare-up, top police officials of the state have rushed additional police deployments in and around the village Gulaha under Ranipur police circle, not far from the Indo-Nepal border. "We will not allow the situation to get out of hand", state police chief Hakam Singh said.

While the cops blamed it entirely on the Muslim dominated village, the villagers have a different opinion. "The two policemen posted in the village shortly after the reported cow slaughter incident had allegedly misbehaved with some residents and even indulged in extortion," said a villager.

Three days later on Wednesday, the constables were replaced by another batch, who were on duty on the fateful night. They were alarmed when some villagers set fire to some houses in one corner of the village.

Just as one of the constables rushed to a local legislator's house to call for a fire brigade, the angry mob charged at the other. They thrashed him and tied him to a wooden cot on, which they sprayed with kerosene oil and set it ablaze.

The other constable, on hearing about the incident, ran for his life. By the time police reinforcements and the fire brigade reached the village, they only found the charred remains of constable Ram Narain Tiwari.

The state administration has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. While six persons have been arrested in connection with the brutal killing, about 12 persons have been picked up on the cow slaughter charge.