NEW DELHI — The mob smashed through the gate and cut the electricity. The men stormed up the steps, chanting the name of a Hindu god and brandishing knives, chains, iron bars and pieces of pipe.

The Musharraf family, who are Muslim, locked themselves in a dark room. The breadwinner, a 30-something rickshaw driver, threw himself under the bed and curled up in a wooden box. But the mob of more than 25 men found him. “Please, I’m also your brother,’’ he pleaded and folded his hands in front of his chest, a gesture for mercy, according to several survivors. “I also have young kids, like you.”

They clubbed him in the face and dragged him out. Family members, in hiding around the neighborhood, frantically called the police. No one came.

As India’s worst spasm of religious violence in years entered its sixth day, with the death toll climbing to at least 38, questions are intensifying about why the New Delhi police failed to quell the bloodletting.