Maina Das being beaten up.

A teenaged girl caught trespassing on a Barasat house on Wednesday morning spent the next two-and-a-half hours tethered to an iron grille while members of the household took turns to cane her in the presence of children.

Maina Das, 15, baked in the sun and screamed in pain with each lash before a police team reached the house a little after 12pm and “rescued” her.

“The girl was almost unconscious when we found her. We took her to the district hospital for a medical examination and she was discharged after first-aid,” an officer at Barasat police station said.

Maina, a resident of a slum beside Birati railway station, had allegedly entered the house of businessman Shyamal Pal and his siblings to steal. According to the complaint, an elderly female member of the joint family caught her trying to steal ornaments adorning the idols in the puja room on the ground floor around 9.30am.

A neighbour said he saw the frail girl in a sari, with a cloth bag slung on her shoulder, being brought to the courtyard and questioned. “The torture began the moment she confessed to entering the house to steal. Every adult member of the family had a go at her.”

The Pals are a large family with around 25 members, including four brothers, their wives and children. The eastern side of the house is under construction, and has two entrances.

The police said they first heard about the incident from a resident who called around noon to say that a thief had been caught and she was being tortured. “We immediately sent a police team, including a woman constable,” a senior officer said.

By the time someone from the Pal family called to report the attempted theft, the police team was on its way.

On whether a case would be registered against the Pals for taking the law in their hands, the officer said: “We can’t do that unless the girl files a complaint. The family is an affluent one, with the brothers involved in businesses ranging from fish supply to transport.”

Maina will be produced in court on Thursday.

Shyamal Pal justified the torture session. “She was trying to steal from our house; so we dealt with her accordingly,” he told Metro.