HYDERABAD – Two mentally-ill women have been arrested by police in Hyderabad on Tuesday for vandalising a part of Goddess Durga idol and Mother Mary statue.

The first incident occurred in a pandal in Khairatabad area. The burqa-clad women, one of them carrying a spanner, damaged the Durga idol. They allegedly tried to attack a man when he tried to stop them.

The women, who are sisters, later went into a church and vandalised part of the statue of Mother Mary.

Eye witnesses said the women subsequently tried to enter a temple but they were stopped.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Zone) Rajesh Chandra said the women were traced with the help of CCTV footage but they were found behaving weirdly. He said they were not responding to their questions and were not even revealing their names.

The women’s brother Asimuddin, who was present at the press conference by the DCP, said they along with their mother were suffering from schizophrenia while a brother was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

The two women live with their old parents. They have been suffering from the illness ever since their return from Jeddah in 2018 and are undergoing treatment.

Asimuddin said they would have never done that. “I am sorry for what has happened,” he said.

Police have registered a case under Indian Penal Code sections 153-A, 295, 295-A, 451, 504 r/w 34.

Police have sent the two women to a hospital for assessment. An official said the report of the doctors along with FIR and two women will be produced before the court.

Meanwhile, some people staged a protest at Saifabad police station demanding action against the women involved in the incident. They alleged that there has been no proper response from the government to the incident. -IANS