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A Maharashtra Man Posted A Morphed Photo Of Yogi Adityanath On Facebook. His 'Friends' Got Him Arrested.

Apologies didn't work.
A Facebook error message is seen in this illustration photo of a computer screen.
Thomas White / Reuters
A Facebook error message is seen in this illustration photo of a computer screen.

After Yogi Adityanath was announced the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a 22-year-old resident of Ghatkopar area in Maharashtra posted an image of a warrior king with the face of the Yogi on his Facebook account.

By Saturday night, his friends who saw the post on Facebook and alerted the locals the and members of the Sambhaji Brigade, an organisation that demand reservation for the Maratha community. The next morning, members of the organisation went to the accused Rinku Gupta's house and asked him to apologise.

Gupta immediately apologised and deleted the post. "However, they insisted that he should face legal action and brought him to the police station," a senior police officer told Indian Express.

Sambhaji Brigade had made headlines after they attacked and vandalised the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune in protest against American scholar James Laine's book on Shivaji titled Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India.

The organisation said Gupta's image on Facebook had hurt their sentiments and filed a complaint against him.

A case under section 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code was registered against Gupta.

Tension in the area was already high after after a 20-year-old man allegedly posted a morphed picture of a place of worship in Trombay, causing AIMIM corporator Shahnawaz Shaikh to lead local residents in a violent protest outside the Trombay police station. A mob of around 150 youths had assaulted policemen and set ablaze a police vehicle parked outside the station.

The police had to resort to firing plastic bullets to quell the mob.

"Keeping that incident in mind, we immediately registered an offence and took the accused into custody before matters could get out hand and word of the incident could spread," the officer told Express.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.