On Thursday, however, the entire Varachha Road area remained peaceful. Police said they had not made any further arrests and added that security in the area had been tightened.

The issue has its origins on January 26, when a group of about six people allegedly owing allegiance to one Dudhiben Koli assaulted BD activist Ramesh Patel. Haresh Thumar, president of the Varachha Road unit of the BD, filed a case in the Varachha police station and named three people -- namely Raju Mistry, Dipak Cheater and Roshan -- in the attack. The friction between the Bajrang Dal and Dudhiben, who runs a brothel in the area, reportedly began a couple of months ago, when, as part of its `moral police' drive against pornography, brothels and multinationals, they had targeted her brothel and `rescued' sex workers.

On Wednesday however, Raju and Rakesh Kika Mistry were travelling from the Mangadh Chowk area of Varachha when a group of alleged Bajrang Dal activists stopped them, took them to the BD office at Mawani Shopping Centre in the Mangadh Chowk area and beat them up. In his complaint to the police late on Wednesday evening, Raju Mistry named Thumar, the president of the Varachha unit of the BD, Bharat Thumar, Manish Patel and two others as having beaten both of them in the office.

Based on the complaint, at around 8:15 pm, the police nabbed the two Thumars and Manish Patel from the BD office. They have not, however, made any arrests in the complaint lodged the previous day by activist Ramesh Patel, the Bajrang Dal alleges. ``They have been falsely nabbed and we were in fact taking them to the police station after spotting them on the motorcycle,'' BD city secretary Ramesh Goyani told Express Newsline. He maintained that they had not beaten up the two mercilessly, as stated by Mistry in his complaint, but admit that a scuffle did take place.