A barber in Bihar's Patna was shot dead by angry villagers after he refused to give them a haircut and shave amid the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.

According to the police, a group of villagers reached 40-year-old Dinesh Thakur's house and demanded he give them a haircut and a shave. When the barber cited lockdown restrictions and refused his services, the men forcibly took him outside the village and brutally thrashed him before shooting him dead. His body was found near a pond in the neighbouring village of the same district. "Some villagers had reached our home on Saturday evening and put pressures on him (the victim) to cut their hair, but he politely refused, citing lockdown rules and issues of social-distancing. I never imagined he would be killed this way over a petty issue," Dinesh's wife Muso Devi reportedly said.

Police have arrested three people based on the victim's wife complaint. "The victim was shot in the head. We have recovered two empty bullets from the spot and further investigation is on," a local policeman reportedly stated.