A furious mob of roughly 200 people tried to break open a police van to "lynch" a sex attacker who confessed to murdering a nine-year-old girl on her walk to school.
Footage shows how crowds besieged paedophile Mikhail Tuvatin after he was arrested over the death of Liza Kiselyova in the Russian city of Saratov.
The crowd chanted ‘Open up, Open up’ as they rocked the police vehicle containing the man believed to be in his 30s.
Officers used tear gas to disperse the angry mob which also surrounded a police station where the detainee was held.
Locals claimed the detainee, a local resident, had been disguised by officers in a special forces police uniform to prevent a mob attack when he was taken to the site of the murder for a crime reenactment by detectives.
“There he is, they dressed him up an an OMON officer,” shouted one woman.
Before his arrest thousands of locals, including the victim’s mother Yelena Kiselyova, joined a police hunt for the girl who had gone missing on her daily seven minute walk to school.
Her body was eventually found in garages near her block of flats.
Tuvatin - with a record of violent sexual attacks for which he had serviced time in jail - confessed to killing her, said police.
He had strangled the schoolgirl, reported BAZA Telegram channel citing law enforcement sources.
Police did not give details of the attack on the girl at 7.30am.
Locals have launched a petition to Vladimir Putin and the Russian parliament demanding a return of the death penalty for child killers.
The petition alleged the detained man was a known paedophile who had been released after undergoing therapy.
Signed by more than 5,000 in a few hours, the petition called on the Russian authorities "to bring back death penalty for proven crimes against children, or else GUARANTEED life sentences.
"Paedophiles must not have rights for rehabilitation with help of psychiatry."
Regional children's ombudswoman Tatyana Zagorodnyaya also demanded a return of the death penalty for child killers.
