A man died while in police custody on Wednesday after he got into a fight with three other detainees in a pre-arraignment holding area in the Bronx, officials said.

Wilfredo Galindez, 44, had been arrested for selling crack cocaine on Tuesday night and was in the process of being formally charged. Three other men were arrested with him on drug charges. Commissioner Raymond Kelly said investigators believed those three men thought that Galindez had given up information about them and retaliated. “He was in a holding cell in the Bronx Central Booking and he left that cell to confer with his attorney,” Mr. Kelly said. “When he came back, apparently he was assaulted by three individuals in that cell who may have suspected him of somehow giving information on them.”

The three men started slapping him in the face and he began to have a seizure, police said. He was taken to Lincoln Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m.

An autopsy by the Medical Examiner’s Office yesterday was inconclusive and more tests were ordered, a spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said.

An aunt, Josefina Pagan, 78, described Galindez as a frail man who had been living with HIV for the past seven years.

“He never liked to take his medicine,” she said. “His family always fights with him for that.”

Galindez had 17 previous arrests, police said. He weighed 100 pounds.

Mr. Kelly said investigators were still talking to the three men alleged to have started attacking him. “We know he was assaulted,” he said. “We don’t know what the cause of death was.”