Ranchi, June 18: A 25-year-old man was strangled to death and then hanged from the ceiling of a house at Ursugi in Garhwa, around 200km from capital Ranchi, last night allegedly for his illicit relation with a village woman.

Police retrieved the body this morning and arrested the woman, Mano Devi (35), the mother of a five-year-old boy, along with nine other accused for the murder. The body has been sent for post-mortem.

According to police, deceased Vipat Pal, a married man with two children, had gone to meet Mano at her house last night when the accused locked him in the house and strangled him to death.

Pal, a tractor driver, had allegedly been in an illicit relationship with Mano, a daily wage labourer, for the past one year. Last night, Pal left home saying he was going to search for labourers for the next day's work. He then went to the residence of Mano, whose husband Satyendra Oraon is also a labourer and works in Chhattisgarh. Her mother-in-law saw Pal entering the house and raised an alarm.

"Her neighbours rushed in and locked Pal inside. But, they allowed Mano to come out. The villagers strangled him to death and later hanged him from the ceiling. The incident apparently took place around 9pm, but police came to know about murder around 8am today," said Garhwa Sadar thana OC Niranjan Kumar.

Mano apart, those who were arrested have been identified as Ajay Oraon, Pappu Oraon, Sunil Oraon, Chhotu Oraon, Jitendra Oraon, Manoj Oraon, Lallu Oraon, Santosh Oraon and Akhilesh Oraon - all neighbours of Mano,

Police said the assailants had also destroyed Pal and Mano's mobile phones.

"We are investigating whether Pal had come on his own or Mano had called him to her house. Mano has a clear involvement in the crime," an official of police station said.