The bodies of eight of the 10 alleged thieves who were lynched by a mob in Bihar's Vaishali district were recovered in a decomposed state Sunday though police had claimed they had cremated all the bodies.

Villagers found four decomposed bodies at Konharaghat Sunday morning. Later, four more bodies were recovered.

Maheshwar Singh, a villager, said it appeared the police had thrown some of the 10 bodies into the river instead of cremating them.

"I personally warned police officials not to throw bodies but cremate them as per Hindu rituals. But they hardly listen," said S. Tiwari, a Hindu priest in the village who was hired by police to perform last rites.

Suresh Sahni, another villager, also said the bodies were thrown into the river.

"We had requested police officials not to throw bodies near the bank of the river and cremate them but they hurriedly left the bodies," Sahni said.

An estimated mob of over 5,000 people had lynched the 10 men, alleged to be thieves, early Thursday in Dhelpurwa village near Hajipur, about 40 km from here.

Police said Saturday that the bodies were cremated at Konharaghat Friday night as per Hindu rituals.

They said that 12-year-old Vikranta, son of one of the deceased, performed the funeral rites.

However, villagers said that police might have cremated only two bodies.

Taking a serious note of the matter, the state government transferred Vaishali District Magistrate Lallan Singh and District Superintendent of Police Anupama Nilekar.

R.K. Singh, the officer-in-charge of the Hajipur town police, Vibha Kumari of the Rajapaker police station and Vaishali district welfare officer-cum-magistrate S.B. Mathur have also been suspended.

The Vaishali district administration refused to comment on the issue.

The district administration cremated afresh the eight bodies - this time in the presence of the district magistrate and the police superintendent.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Sunday met senior officials and discussed the development.

Meanwhile, a team of the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes began a probe into the lynching of the 10 men. The victims belonged to the Nat community of gypsies.

At a high-level meeting of top police officials chaired by Nitish Kumar Saturday, the government decided to impose a collective fine on the villagers for taking the law in their own hands.

Alarmed at the increasing number of cases of mob brutality in the state, the state government has decided to hold the entire village if responsible if its residents take the law in their own hands while dealing with criminal offences.