Bareilly (UP), Sep 19 (IANS): An interfaith couple was mercilessly assaulted by some locals, presuming them to be  "involved in love jihad".

The man had gone with his friend to a temple in search of her missing sister. A signboard had been put up on the temple premises reading "Muslims not allowed".

A video that had gone viral shows a "few vigilantes" beating the man, in his early 30s, and alleging he was indulging in "love jihad", despite his female friend (28), and her sister (22), pleading before them that "they were all friends".

They live in the same neighbourhood as the temple.

The incident took place in the Quila area on Saturday evening and came to light on Monday when the purported video was circulated on social media.

Four accused were detained and released after being booked under section 151 of CrPC.

The man from the minority community was also released by cops after about three hours of detention.

SP (city) Rahul Bhati said on Monday, "We registered a non-cognisable report under IPC section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) against two identified and a few unidentified persons for assaulting the couple."

Bhati added: "Four accused -- Aman Saxena, Himanshu Tandon, Harsh Srivastava and Uday Kumar – were arrested after scanning the video and efforts are on to identify others. All of them were challaned under section 151 of CrPC.