A long drive on his weekly day off along with a relative and friends proved to be deadly for Mohammad Azam, a software engineer, who was beaten to death by a mob in Karnataka's Bidar district on Friday on suspicion of being a child lifter.

A pall of gloom has gripped the house of Azam, 28, in Errakunta in the old city of Hyderabad. Azam's brother Mohammad Akram urged the Telangana government to take up the issue with the Karnataka government for a proper investigation. He recalled that their cousin Noor Mohammad, Salham, Mohammad Salman and another friend came to meet Azam on Friday. "They left the house around 11 am. We did not know that they were going out of the city," said Akram. Relatives of Azam say they stopped at a hamlet. Salham saw some kids returning from a school. As he was carrying chocolates, he offered it to them.