Bangalore, Feb. 23: A playful shot of a boy lying on the laps of five female classmates has leaped from the classroom to the instant world of social media, leaving another student in the frame battered by suspected Sangh parivar moral cops.

The 20-year-old was kidnapped yesterday and beaten black and blue before being dumped on a highway in Suratkal, near Mangalore, some 350km from here.

The abduction took place after the picture went viral on WhatsApp and Facebook.

The incident, in a communally sensitive area notorious for instances of moral policing by fringe Hindu outfits, has put police on their toes.

Mangalore DCP Santosh Babu has invited leaders from the communities to which the girls and the other students belong to settle the matter peacefully. 'We are wary of the danger if this goes out of hand,' said a police source.

The police detained six suspects today, but no arrests had been made till late this evening. In a complaint with the local police, the assaulted student, who has marks all over his back and limbs, said he was called out of home around 11am by two of his classmates, purportedly to discuss the buzz the picture had generated. The moment he stepped out, a group of men bundled him into a van.

The alleged kidnappers then drove to an isolated place where others, numbering around ten, were waiting. The boy, a final-year student of Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), has told the police the abductors then stripped him before beating him up for information on the student clicked lying on the girls' laps.

Although the two classmates - the one who clicked the picture and another boy seen in the frame - were also bundled into the van, the assaulted student said the men targeted only him.

'They were very angry about... (the student) lying on the girls' laps and beat me up for information to locate him,' he told reporters from his hospital bed.

The student was later dumped around 3.30pm near the national highway. By then his father had filed a missing complaint. Mangalore ACP Ravi Kumar said a case of kidnapping, assault and attempt to murder had been registered.

The girls, too, have lodged a complaint under the Information Technology Act for circulating the image online.

A source in their college said the institution too had taken action, suspending all eight - the five girls and the three boys - following the controversy, the latest since local groups Sri Ram Sene and Hindu Jagarana Vedike raided pubs and assaulted women in 2012. The same year, seven boys and five girls celebrating a birthday at a resort were beaten up before media cameras by a group of alleged Hindu Jagarana Vedike activists.