Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday arrested seven Hindu nationalists for throwing posters containing anti-Muslim remarks, torn pages of Quran, and pork outside three mosques and a shrine in Ayodhya on Wednesday.

The arrestees are Mahesh Kumar Mishra, Pratyush Srivastava, Nitin Kumar, Deepak Kumar Gaur alias Gunjan, Brijesh Pandey, Shatrughan Prajapati and Vimal Pandey. All are residents of Ayodhya district.

“While seven persons have been arrested, four others are absconding. We will arrest them soon. During questioning of those arrested, it came to light that they wanted to ruin the amicable atmosphere and peaceful tradition of this city,” Senior Superintendent of Police (Ayodhya) Shailesh Kumar Pandey said.

He was speaking at a press conference.

He went on to say: “The law and order situation is completely under control and no untoward incident has happened since the incident.”

Objectionable items were thrown at three mosques Taatshah Jama masjid, Masjid Ghosiyana and Kashmiri Mohalla
mosque and at the shrine of Gulab Shah Baba on Wednesday.

The accused have been booked under IPC section 295 (injuring or defiling places of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs).

“The objects, which they had thrown, were recovered, and the vehicles used by them have been impounded… After collecting the evidence, police teams were able to figure out the whole chain of events,” Pandey said.

Mahesh Kumar Mishra was the “mastermind” of the incident, and the planning was done at his house “to take revenge for the communal violence in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri,” Ayodhya police said in a statement.

“They bought copies of the Quran and pork and threw it at the mosques and religious places,” read the statement.

This article first appeared on maktoobmedia.com