Police probe revealed that the villagers attacked the sadhus suspecting them to be a gang of criminals involved in kidnapping children. (Express photo)Seven people have been arrested after a group of four sadhus (seers) hailing from Uttar Pradesh were allegedly roughed up by local residents of Lavangi village in Jat taluka of Sangli district in Maharashtra on Tuesday morning.
Police probe revealed that the villagers attacked the sadhus suspecting them to be a gang of criminals involved in kidnapping children. The arrests were made after an FIR in the case was lodged at Umadi police station Wednesday morning.
Police have identified the sadhus as Nemchand Nath Gosavi, Raju Gosavi, Pappu Gosavi and Premshankar Gosavi. Police said the four of them had gone to Karnataka for a pilgrimage in a car.
On their way back from Karnataka, they were heading towards the temple town of Pandharpur via Sangli district when, around 10.30 am on Tuesday, they stopped at Lavangi village to ask for directions.
A local youngster, who had earlier seen a video on child theft, suspected the sadhus to be a part of a gang involved in kidnapping children and informed other villagers about it, police said.
Soon, a number of villagers gathered at the spot and started thrashing the sadhus with belts. On receiving information, a team from Umadi police station rushed to the spot and rescued the seers. The cops took them to a hospital for treatment.
After treatment, the sadhus left for their journey without lodging any police complaint, saying “Bhagwan Unko Saja Dega (God will punish the assailants)”, police said. However, a video of sadhus being beaten up went viral on social media, causing ripples in social and political circles of the state.
Director General of Police Rajnish Seth ordered an inquiry into this incident after which Sangli police initiated a probe and lodged offence against about 25 persons allegedly involved in the incident.
“We have so far arrested seven persons in this case. Probe revealed that villagers attacked the sadhus due to a misunderstanding…. Further investigation is on,” said Dikshit Gedam, superintendent of Sangli police.
Police have identified the arrested accused persons as Amsiddha Sargar, Lahu Lokhande, Nagraj Pawar, Sagar Tambe, Ramesh Koli, Sachin Birajdar and Shivaji Sargar. The accused persons were identified from the videos of the incident, police said.
Senior police officials, including additional superintendent Manisha Dubule, visited the crime scene on Wednesday.