Raiganj, May 20: A 47-year-old man, who was lynched by a mob yesterday, has been identified as Jagadish Basfore, a fourth polling officer supposedly on his way to town after election duty at a booth in Raiganj block on Sunday.

Basfore was beaten to death on the suspicion that he was a child-lifter. Villagers of Pansila, 8km from here, had found him allegedly in a drunken state dragging away a reluctant 12-year-old boy.

The boy who is in hospital in a state of trauma — probably a result of watching the lynching from close quarters, doctors said — has been unable to give his parents’ names and addressees.

Paran, Basfore’s brother, identified the body at the Raiganj District Hospital this morning. Basfore is a resident of Kaliaganj, 22km from here, where he works as a Group D employee in the rural hospital.

District superintendent of police Swapan Banerjee Purnapatra said six persons have been arrested.

“Investigations have revealed that he was drunk and had a child with him,” the police chief said. “It is a mystery why he landed up at the village when he was supposed to report to the district headquarters.”

Basfore was on polling duty at Deenanagore Adivasi Free Primary School booth.