Four people have been killed and another hospitalised with serious injuries after village residents in Narayanganj’s Sonargaon attacked a group of suspected robbers.

The incident occurred around midnight on Sunday at Bagri village in Sadipur Union, said Additional Superintendent of Police Chailau Marma, spokesman for the district police.

“The village residents say a gang of robbers entered their village with the intention to rob it that night. The residents joined together and beat them.”

Police went to the scene once the incident was reported and recovered the bodies of three people. They took two with serious injuries to hospital – one to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and the other to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation. The one sent to Dhaka Medical died in the early hours of Monday.

The locals said they saw a group of unidentified men near the Bagri Lake in Bagri village at night and believed they were robbers.

Some of them used the sound amplifier at the mosque to announce that ‘robbers were attacking the village’. Hearing this, the villagers gathered by the lake and began chasing the group.

The group jumped into the lake to try and flee, but the villagers caught them and beat them. Three of them were killed on the spot.

Police have yet to identify the dead and the injured, ASP Chailau Marma said. The injured man admitted to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation gave his name as Md Ali.

“He confessed under police interrogation that all of them were members of a robbery gang and were preparing an attack. But, as it was the month of Ramdan, the villagers were awake. When the villagers noted their presence, they were attacked.”

Police have deployed additional personnel in the village and are investigating the incident, the officer said. They would soon take the necessary legal steps, he added.