The three reportedly told interrogators that they defiled the houses of worship to please Satan and score high marks in their examinations. They also reportedly confessed to the desecration of all the three places of worship and said they were the ones who burned Bibles and hymn books there at midnight and returned to their hostel undetected.
Two Bibles left on a desk in the room of the three inmates made the wardens of the hostel suspicious as news about the desecration spread, He grilling the students who eventually confessed, the police said, adding that they were then sent to police custody. As two of the accused were under-aged, the police referred them to the Juvenile Justice Board for further action.
Meanwhile, Synod Social Front, a wing of the Presbyterian Church Synod that deals with social reforms, expressed anguish over the recent desecration of houses of worship belonging to various church denominations by miscreants. In a statement issued in Aizawl, the Synod Social Front condemned such acts as blasphemous and appealed to the government to bring the perpetrators to book.
The statement urged all the Christians, especially church members, to pray for those who had "gone astray and were burning Bibles, drawing Satanic symbols in churches and defiling holy places to appease Satan, the enemy of Christianity".