Three people were arrested on Sunday for assaulting as many sadhus in Meerut on the suspicion of being child kidnappers two days ago.

The young sadhus belong to the Nath sect of which Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the mahant of the Gorakhnath temple, is a member. They roam across the country and preach the teachings of Guru Gorakhnath.

According to police, the attackers turned suspicious after the Aadhaar card of a 12-year-old boy called Sameer was found on one of the sadhus.

A police officer, who didn’t wish to be identified, said the attackers misread the name as Shamim and thought the three men were part of a child-kidnapping gang who had disguised themselves as Hindu ascetics.

Ayush Vikram Singh, superintendent of police of Meerut city, said: “The attackers said Sunil Kumar, one of the sadhus, had the Aadhaar card of a child called Sameer. They got suspicious and attacked the sadhus and then handed them over to the police. During the inquiry, we found that the sadhus were genuine and we released them.”

The other two sadhus were identified as Gaurav Kumar and Gopi Nath. They all
hail from Jagadhari village in Jamuna Nagar district of Haryana.

“We cross-checked their identity from their home state Haryana and found that they were indeed ascetics,” he added.

A source in the police said that neither the attackers nor the police officers initially understood the meaning of the Nath sect.

“The sadhus were attacked at Prahlad Nagar in Meerut city on Friday. They were terrorised and unable to express themselves in the police station. However, one of them managed to tell an officer that the chief minister was the leader of their sect. This alerted the officers and they released the trio.”

The cops also drove the sadhus to the bus stand to help them move out of the city quickly. “However, someone had already recorded a video of the attacks and it became viral on social media on Saturday,” said a police officer in Lucknow. He said the attackers were all Hindus.

Sadhus often change their names after taking sanyas but the trio told their original names to their tormentors and the police. The police quoted the sadhus as saying that the attackers asked them to recite the Gayatri Mantra and the Hanuman Chalisa but kept beating them.