A young man was savagely assaulted by four people – one of whom bit his cheek like an animal and another battered his head with a coconut-sized rock in Andhra Pradesh’s Dr BR Ambedkar Konaseema district – in a stomach-churning video that has emerged online.

The young man – Rameshwarapa Jayasai Yuvaraju from Gudapalli village – is receiving treatment at a local hospital.

Yuvaraju and his attackers – who recorded the assault on their mobile phones, underlining the evil intent behind the assault – are students of the AFDT Junior College in Malkipuram.

A complaint has been filed with the local police and a case has been filed.

In the video Yuvaraju (in a light pink shirt) argues with two attackers as a third blindsides and hits him with a dried coconut frond, after which stones are thrown at him.

A scared Yuvaraju, who seems to be asking for mercy, is then dragged off the mud path as one of the attackers (a portly young man in a red t-shirt) appears to lecture him.

The violence erupts suddenly – the attacker in the red t-shirt repeatedly grabs Yuvaraju’s neck and wrestles him to the ground, tearing his shirt collar in the process.

The nearly four-minute video continues in a similar vein, with the attackers grabbing Yuvaraju from behind, biting his cheek; one of the attackers shows the blood on his hand.

At one point Yuvaraju, with his shirt torn off him, is lying on the ground as the others kick him repeatedly, and then he is kneeling with the collar of his torn shirt wrapped around his neck.

What prompted the attack?

Yuvaraju was a class monitor who had complained about his four attackers.

He was reportedly targeted as an act of revenge; they lured Yuvaraju to a deserted spot on the pretext of taking him to the college and beat him for over two hours.

All four have been suspended.

Yuvaraju said he had not disclosed the attack as they had threatened to kill him.