LUCKNOW, April 2 -- In a grisly discovery that shocked residents of a Pilibhit village, police said on Tuesday that a 50-year-old watchman was found dead inside a deserted under-construction house with his face stripped of flesh and reduced to bare bone.

The body of Man Singh (50), a resident of Sambhua village in the Ghungchai police station area, was found lying beneath a staircase in the vacant house he had been guarding, about half a kilometre from his home. Villagers who entered the premises after noticing no movement for several hours, were horrified by the condition of the body.

"The face had completely turned skeletal. Only the bones were visible," a police officer said, adding that there was also a deep wound at the back of the...