A young man from Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu was arrested on Saturday for posting objectionable photos of him with sculptures at the Brihadeeshwara temple in Thanjavur on social media.
Mujibir Rahman, a food delivery boy from Trichy, had visited the temple with his friends on June 5 took photos of him kissing, hugging and touching the sculptures inappropriately at the 1000-year-old temple.
"Rahman hails from the Othakkadai area of Madurai. Currently, he is residing and working as a food delivery boy in Trichy. As he wanted to celebrate; he went to the nearby ancient town of Thanjavur on Wednesday. There, he visited King Raja Raja Chola built Brahideeswara Temple, better known as 'the big temple'. In the temple, he took the controversial pictures with the women sculptures," the Trichy police told Hindustan Times.
Rahman's arrest came after M Rathinavel (23), from Trichy, filed a complaint to the commissioner of police citing that the images and the captions hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.
"Finally, we got him on Saturday afternoon and he was sent to Trichy Central Prison under judicial custody," an official from the Cantonment police station said.
In the Facebook post, Rahman had said that the sculptures should be covered with a shawl referring to the state's rule that women employees wearing 'chudidaar dresses' would have to compulsorily wear shawls.
Rahman was booked under sections 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) and 295 (A) (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code.
