Four people, including a man and his two sons, have been arrested in Noida for allegedly beating a suspected thief who later died in a hospital, police said on Thursday.

Ram Avtar, his sons Sanjeev and Saajan and their neighbour Sunil, all residents of Chotpur village under Sector 63 police station limits, have been booked for culpable homicide, the police said.

"On Wednesday morning, Pankaj Dubey had jumped into the house of Ram Avtar for theft but the family members had woken up because of the noise made by him,” a police spokesperson said.

"The family members then caught the thief and more people from the neighbourhood joined them and they overpowered the thief before beginning to thrash him,” the official said.

The incident took place around 5 AM, and the local police were alerted half an hour later. The police then took the thief in its custody, but the accused looked injured and was rushed to a hospital, but he died there, the spokesperson said.

Later, the police got a complaint from the mother of the deceased, and an FIR was lodged under IPC section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) at the Sector 63 police station, the official said.

Based on the FIR, Ram Avtar, his sons and one neighbour were arrested on Thursday, the police said. Dubey, according to officials, was a history-sheeter of Kannauj Police and was jailed multiple times in the past.

On Wednesday morning, when his theft bid was thwarted by the crowd, he had pulled out a country-made pistol to escape from the spot but was overpowered and badly thrashed, the officials said.

With PTI inputs.