Indian police have opened an investigation into a defamation suit against Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi inside a museum during the 150th anniversary of the leader's birth, which falls this week, officials said.
Unidentified people wrote the word "traitor" in green paint on a photo of the monument in Babu Bahwan in the district of Riwa in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Organizers from the Indian National Congress (NCP) discovered the distortion when they gathered at the memorial to commemorate Gandhi's birthday on October 2.
"We are investigating the smear, but we have no information and we have not arrested anyone yet," provincial police chief Obaid Khan said by telephone.
Police also dismissed the plaintiff's claims, Congress Party leader Gormit Yesang Mango, for missing a jar containing the ashes of Gandhi's body, citing a memorial team saying the ashes had never been kept in the museum.
Khan said police had filed a criminal case in the incident on the grounds that it "harms national unity" and represents a possible violation of peace.
No one has claimed responsibility for this act, and Hindu extremists oppose Gandhi's ideas, blaming him for the partition of India in 1947, where Pakistan was founded.
Gandhi's body was cremated in New Delhi after his assassination by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, on January 30, 1948, and his ashes were placed in several jars and scattered in various rivers across the country.