BHOPAL: Three people, including two from Uttar Pradesh, have been detained by the police in the Narmadapuram district of Madhya Pradesh in connection with the suspected burning and desecration of a church, an official said on Wednesday. 

When some people went to the shrine on Sunday to make prayers, the arson and destruction at the church in tribally predominate Sukhtawa became apparent, said the official.

"Three persons were detained in connection with the arson of the prayer hall under Kesla police station", said Narmadapuram Superintendent of Police Gurkaran Singh, adding that the police identified the accused as Avnish Pandey, a resident of Faizabad in UP, an electrician named Shiv and Akash Tiwari, who is from UP’s Jhansi.

After lodging a case under Section 295 IPC, we formed three teams and following sustained investigation, our teams were able to track two of the accused, including prime accused Avanish and his helper Shiva Rai on Monday late night. Their grilling led to the arrest of Jhansi-based mastermind Tiwari. All three are now in police custody," police  said.

Calling Tiwari the mastermind, the Police superintendent said he used to send locations, especially of “churches, mazars and dargahs” to the other accused to commit such attacks. 

The SP claimed that in addition to the promise of financial gain, Pandey and Shiv consented to work for Tiwari because they felt "they should do something for their religion."

The senior official said police will sternly deal with those who try to disrupt communal harmony.
An official had earlier claimed, citing the allegation, that furniture and other holy manuscripts had also been damaged on Sunday.

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