MUMBAI, April 16: The staff of an Indian news channel was attacked on Monday and its offices were ransacked by dozens of Hindu protestors after it broadcast an interview with a runaway couple — a teenage Hindu girl and a young Muslim man.

About 50 people attacked the channel’s office in Mumbai, saying the television company was denigrating Hinduism by appearing to promote love between people from different religions.

Marriage outside ones own caste, religion and background is frowned upon in much of officially secular, Hindu-dominated India. Romantic liaisons between Hindus and Muslims have sparked riots.

Fearing the reaction by their families and communities to the relationship, the young couple fled on a scooter last week from their homes in Surat, a city in the neighbouring Gujarat state.

They turned up at the office of Star News, a 24-hour Hindi-language current affairs channel partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

The young man said their families were against the romance and that the girl’s life was in danger.

After broadcasting the interview on Friday, Star News officials handed over the couple to police, who took the young man into custody and sent the 16-year-old girl to a remand home for minors.

Protestors damaged furniture and smashed company vehicles with hammers. A few employees were injured.

“We have arrested 18 people. They are from an unknown Hindu group,” police officer Arup Patnaik told reporters.—Reuters