Ahmedabad: A youth who was running a social media campaign against Bochasanvasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS) and other branches of the Swaminarayan sect has been nabbed by the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime police. On behalf of BAPS, its cadre Vipul Patel had on March 10 filed a complaint in the Cyber Crime Police against an unidentified person and claimed that on 7 March he spotted on social media some writings and pictures that were defamatory against Mahant Swami and other Swaminarayan saints. Some social media accounts were also opened to provoke the people and hurt the sentiments of the Swaminarayan sect.

Police have arrested Bhudev Avinash Vyas from the Vatva area of Ahmedabad and seized his three mobile phones. Police traced usage of various social media accounts on Vyas’s phone and found pictures of Swaminarayan saints also. Vyas is a middle-class youth working in the private bank in the sales department. Based on BAPS’s complaint, police arrested Vyas and produced him before the additional chief judicial magistrate, seeking five days remand. The court sent Vyas to one day remand.

Vyas’s Facebook posts show that he is deeply hurt by certain mentions in Swaminarayan sect’s literature and books in which Hindu Gods and Goddesses are insulted. In one of these posts he shows Maninagar Gaadi Swaminarayan sanstha’s book in which Chamunda Mata is called Tuchhh to show Swaminarayan as superior. In another Facebook post, Bhudev Avinash Vyas has said that his two social media accounts with 7,000 and 15,000 followers were removed by Facebook, but he created another with 7,000 followers so far. In many posts, Vyas seems deeply agitated against a number of sex scandals involving Swaminarayan sadhus. Vyas, however, crossed the limits of decency in his posts and went too far to show his anger. Like an average social media person, he also posted unverified videos arguably defamatory in nature.DeshGujarat