A homeless man was apparently beaten to death by a group of boys Friday night at a pitch for gateball in the northern Tokyo city of Higashimurayama, police said Saturday.

The police found the man, identified as Kunihiko Suzuki, 55, collapsed and bleeding from head injuries after being alerted by another homeless man around 11:40 p.m. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died shortly afterward from severe injuries all over his body.

Police believe Suzuki, originally from Kanagawa Prefecture, was one of two or three homeless people who have been living in the park for about five years.

According to investigators, a group of three or four boys arrived at the gateball ground, which is in a residential area, at around 9:20 p.m.

They dragged Suzuki, who was sleeping in a roofed sitting area at the ground, to a vacant lot about 10 meters away and assaulted him for about 90 minutes. Three people were in the sitting area but the boys targeted Suzuki alone, according to police.

Police said they are treating the incident as a case of fatal bodily injury and plan to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of Suzuki's death.

The boys have not yet been identified. The man who reported the case to police said the boys appeared to be "either junior high or high school students."

Since the boys were seen riding bicycles, police suspect they live nearby and plan to conduct inquiries in the neighborhood.

The sports ground is located some 400 meters northwest of Yasaka Station on the Seibu-Tamako line.