Pune:
13 people associated with the Hindu Rashtra Sena, a radical outfit in Maharashtra, have been arrested in Pune in connection with the alleged murder of a young IT professional in the city.
24-year-old Mohsin Sadiq Shaikh was attacked on Sunday evening when he was returning home with a friend after dinner, the police said.
The police suspect the attack on Shaikh, who is from Solapur in the state, was related to tension in the city over the derogatory depiction of Maratha king Shivaji and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray in pictures shared on Facebook and Whatsapp.
Shaikh's brother Mobin Shaikh alleged that his brother was attacked by a large group of men who brutally beat him to the ground with rods and hockey sticks and kept attacking him even as he lay wounded. He also alleged that his friend was not attacked because "he had no beard."
"We have arrested seven people who are all from the Hindu Rashtra Sena. But there were about 20-25 who attacked him with hockey sticks and rods. We will be making more arrests," Deputy Commissioner of Police Manoj Patil told NDTV.
Pune is now calm and the police described the situation as normal. Over the last two days, nearly 200 public buses and private vehicles were damaged.
The Congress, which rules Maharashtra, has said they "strongly condemn" the young man's killing.