Burdwan/Durgapur, July 26: Over 3,000 villagers today fought a pitched battle with policemen in Burdwan for nearly two hours when they came to take away a woman’s body in Srikhanda.

Around 6.30am, 30-year-old Deepali Bairagya’s body was found floating in a pond in Srikhanda, about 200km from Calcutta. She had been missing since Thursday.

On spotting the body, villagers dragged Deepali’s 40-year-old husband, Hemanta, and his elder brother Nilkamal to the pond. They were asked to explain how the body surfaced there.

After being questioned repeatedly, Hemanta, a cloth trader, and Nilkamal said they had slapped Deepali several times on Thursday night for not serving them dinner on time after which she collapsed.

The brothers, scared that she had died, hid the body in the terrace wrapped in a piece of cloth till yesterday. Late last night, they dumped the body in the pond.

In order to avoid suspicion, they lodged a missing complaint with Katwa police on Thursday night itself.

As the news spread, more people from neighbouring villages came to the spot where the body had surfaced. They forced the brothers, who had identified the body, to stand in waist-deep water in the pond.

“We kept the duo in the pond demanding that they give a confession in writing that they had killed Deepali,” said villager Rahul Das.

When police arrived around 8.30am, the villagers refused to hand over the body to them. They said the police might hush up the case and not punish the brothers.

The policemen, who were outnumbered, retreated but came back with reinforcements, led by sub-divisional officer of Katwa Harun Al Rashid.

“The mob became violent when more policemen arrived. They started throwing stones and bricks, injuring nine policemen, and damaged several vehicles parked near the pond,” Rashid said.

The policemen lathicharged to disperse the mob and lobbed teargas shells. “But when that did not help, we had to open fire in the air in self defence,” said superintendent of police R. Rajshekharan. He said the police fired three rounds in the air.

But a villager, Paresh Ghosh, received bullet injuries in the abdomen.

After the mob scattered, the police took away the body and pulled Hemanta and Nilkamal out of the pond.

The brothers, who fell ill, were taken to a hospital.