A group of men beat to death a young IT professional from a minority community in Pune on Monday as protests and violence raged in Maharashtra over derogatory Facebook posts pertaining to Chhatrapati Shivaji and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.A newspaper report identified the victim as 22-year-old Mohsin Shaikh from Solapur.
Maharashtra Police arrested seven people on Tuesday for the attack.
The accused are allegedly associated with the Hindu Rashtra Sena, said the report.
The killing came a day after Shiv Sena activists protested in Maharashtra over the Facebook posts.
Scores of public buses, private vehicles, shops and establishments were pelted with stones and damaged in Pune, Kolhapur, Solapur and other parts of western Maharashtra, reported IANS.
Angry Shiv Sainiks demanded that the objectionable posts be removed from the social networking site even as Mumbai police registered a case against unidentified persons for posting the matter.
Many parts of Pune, Solapur, Kolhapur and north-eastern Mumbai had observed a spontaneous shutdown on Sunday.
The protests started on Saturday with the blocking of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway for several hours, but the situation was described as "under control" by Sunday evening.
