This is the horrific moment a woman is tied to a tractor and beaten to death by a mob - after she was accused of being a child kidnapper.

Mentally disabled Otera Bibi, 42, had been living with her parents but wandered from her home to a nearby village in West Bengal, India, last Tuesday.

Otera stopped inside the wooden hut of a local villager Dilip Ghosh - sparking fears that she was trying to snatch his ten-year-old daughter.

A furious mob pounced on Otera - tying her to a tractor and attacking her for three hours with sticks and pelting her with stones.

Locals ripped off her clothes and shaved her head as they 'beat her mercilessly'', according to witnesses in the Mithipur-Panagarh village.

Otera is understood to have tried to protest her innocence but onlookers could not understand what she was saying.

Police arrived later in the afternoon and rushed Otera to Jangipur sub-divisional hospital but she died of her injuries after the attack in the Murshidabad district.

Mentally disabled Otera Bibi, 42, had been living with her parents but wandered from her home to a nearby village in West Bengal, India, last Tuesday

Murshidabad Superintendent of Police Mukesh said: 'A mob beat up the woman after a rumour spread that she was trying to lift children from the village.

'We have started investigating the murder case. We are trying to identify the people involved in the lynching as well as those who spread the rumour.'

Police detained several villagers for questioning but so far nobody has been charged over the death.

Otera stopped in a villager's hut - sparking fears that she was trying to snatch his ten-year-old daughter. Locals tied her to a tractor and attacked her for three hours with sticks and stones

They believed Otera was a child kidnapper after a similar incident last month in which a child vanished from the neighbourhood.

But Otera's husband said his wife was 'mentally challenged' while her family said they were not concerned at first when she went missing because she would often wander away from home for a day or two.