LUCKNOW (India) - SUSPECTED bandits burned a family of 12 to death on Thursday in central India in a revenge attack involving rival gangs, police said.

The bandits attacked the family and beat them up before 'locking them up in a thatched roof hut and then setting it on fire,' said Brij Lal, a senior police officer in Uttar Pradesh state.

The charred bodies of five men, four women and three children were recovered.

Lal said the attackers apparently were avenging the killing of one of their own last week by the head of the family, Beta Singh Gaur.

The attack occurred in the Chambal region, a rugged maze of ravines straddling the border between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The region has long been a haven for bands of outlaws, known as dacoits.

The attack occurred on the Madhya Pradesh side. Police believe the attackers escaped into Uttar Pradesh, Lal said.

Separately, angry villagers killed 12 suspected bandits who had just staged a robbery Wednesday night in Sunder Pahari, a village in the eastern state of Jharkhand, said Ram Lakshman Prasad, a police inspector-general.

Residents, alerted by the family of those robbed, overpowered four bandits and beat four of them to death, Prasad said.

Eight others hid in a room in the village, but residents set the building on fire, burning them to death, he said. -- AP