Members of a Hindutva group blackened a mural of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, at the Ghaziabad railway station on Friday, under the belief that it depicted the sixth Mughal ruler, Aurangzeb, reported The Times of India.

Shouting “Aurangzeb murdabad”, or death to Aurangzeb, members of the Hindu Raksha Dal sprayed black paint over the 16-foot-tall mural of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Aurangzeb has again become the subject of a controversy in recent weeks, following demands by Hindutva groups to remove his tomb from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar city, formerly known as Aurangabad, in Maharashtra.

The groups claim that Aurangzeb’s tomb is a “symbol of pain and slavery”.

On Friday, an unidentified railway official told The Times of India that efforts were made to convince the mob that the mural depicted Bahadur Shah Zafar. “But they thought they were right,” said the official.

“Before we could realise what was happening, they climbed atop each other and started smearing the portrait with colour,” he added.

The official told the newspaper that the members also wrote “HRD” on the mural and shouted “Hindu Raksha Dal Zindabad”, or long live Hindu Raksha Dal.

A case against unknown persons was registered under the Railways Act sections pertaining to unlawful entry upon or into any part of a railway (147) and defacing (166).

The mural of Bahadur Shah Zafar – who was deposed by the British after the first war of Independence in 1857 – had been commissioned by the non-profit CS Disha Foundation in 2016. They had also painted the portraits of Tatya Tope, Mangal Pandey and Rani Laxmi Bai, among other historical figures.

“The painting in question is certainly not of Aurangzeb, but of Bahadur Shah Zafar,” Udita Tyagi of CS Disha Foundation, who supervised the art project, told The Times of India. “Historically, Aurangzeb is not even distantly related to the First War of Independence, but Bahadur Shah Zafar definitely is.”

On March 17, violence broke out in Nagpur hours after Hindutva groups held a protest demanding the tomb’s removal.

After the violence, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the Hindi film Chhaava sparked anger against Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

Chhaava, directed by Laxman Utekar, stars Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna and Rashmika Mandanna. The film is based on the life of Sambhaji, who is the son of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji, and depicts his capture and execution by Aurangzeb’s forces.

On March 31, Uttarakhand announced that it was renaming Aurangzebpur in Haridwar district to Shivaji Nagar. This was among names of 17 places in four districts being changed “in accordance with public sentiment and Indian culture and heritage”.

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