NEW DELHI — Two men suspected of raping and murdering a five-year-old girl in a remote northeast Indian state were dragged from a police station and lynched by an enraged mob, police said on Tuesday.

The girl’s disappearance from Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh state, and the discovery of her badly disfigured body, sparked widespread anger.

The accused, both plantation workers from neighboring Assam state, were being questioned by police when a hundreds-strong mob carrying weapons stormed the compound on Monday.

“The mob damaged the station and took away the accused before beating them to death with clubs, hammers and stones,” Lohit police chief Issac Pertin said.

Fifteen people, including several policemen, were injured. No arrests have been made yet in connection with the lynching.

Police had charged the pair, aged 30 and 25, with raping and killing the girl and said they confessed to the crime during interrogation.

The girl’s body was found on a tea estate where the accused lived.

Meanwhile, state’s chief minister ordered a police inquiry and also a magisterial probe into the incident. “We are citizens of a great country who abide by the law enshrined in the Constitution. Our laid down rules and regulations do not allow us to take the law in our hands,” he said, appealing to the people to maintain peace.

The chief minister, who described the rape and the mob action as “barbaric and inhuman”, expressed solidarity with the family members of the minor.

Three police personnel, including the Tezu station in-charge, were suspended and the SP was transferred, a press release said. Prohibitory orders were imposed in Tezu township area following the mob lynching.

Conflict between ethnic tribal inhabitants of Arunachal Pradesh and migrant workers from nearby states sometimes boils over into skirmishes.

In 2015 a mob broke into a jail in neighboring Nagaland state and murdered a migrant worker accused of raping a tribal woman. — Agencies