Three persons have been arrested in Maharashtra’s Beed district for displaying a banner that sought to portray slain gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf Ahmad as “martyrs”, police said on Wednesday.

The incident took place at Majalgaon in the district on Tuesday following which many locals gathered around the banner. Authorities promptly took it down, the official said.

Police said the banner sought to portray Atiq and his brother as “martyrs”. It also had a newspaper cutting that abused a particular community for the murder of the two brothers last week.

Police registered a case against three persons under Indian Penal Code sections 294 (obscenity by words or utterances), 295 (outraging religious feelings) and 153 (A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth) and arrested the trio, he said.

Apart from this, a first information report (FIR) was also registered against the editor and a reporter of the newspaper whose report was used on the banner, he said.

Atiq and Ashraf were shot dead point-blank by three men posing as media persons in Prayagraj on April 15 night when the brother duo was being taken for a medical check-up by the police.

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