Police in one of India's most lawless states have been caught on camera throwing the body of a road accident victim into a canal, triggering outrage on Monday.

The video, which has gone viral, shows three policemen in the state of Bihar carrying the bloodied victim to a bridge barrier before levering him over the edge into the waters below, as bystanders looked on.

The video has garnered more than 800,000 views since being posted on Sunday.

Police in India are widely regarded as corrupt and ineffective, and Bihar -- which has a population of more than 100 million people -- is one of the country's poorest and least developed states.

A senior police officer of Muzaffarpur district told AFP his men "only threw the lower half" of the man into the water as it was badly crushed by a speeding truck and could not be salvaged.

"It was the body of an elderly man who is yet to be identified. The upper half was sent for post-mortem but the lower half was badly mangled so they threw it in the canal," said Rakesh Kumar.

"It was a big mistake. We have suspended the three policemen who can be seen in the video."

After the video went viral, police hurriedly fished out some body parts from the canal, a local media report said.

One user on X, formerly known as Twitter, asked "Are they police or savage beasts?"

Another wrote: "It seems that humanity and morality has died among people these days."