The visuals of the car on fire were aired across the state and triggered tensions with people thinking the MNS and NCP had taken to the streets against each other.

There is the unbelievable and then there's the plain ridiculous.

Four persons, allegedly activists belonging to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena political party, have been arrested allegedly on charges of buying a car just to set it on fire in order to make it look like their party was protesting against rivals Nationalist Congress Party.

The four activists had allegedly gone to a car dealer and bought a Maruti 800 car for Rs 35,000 which they then proceeded to set on fire in Kurla, located in central Mumbai, in full view of news cameras to make it look like they had targeted a member of the NCP, reports NDTV.

The four accused - Mustaki Ahmad Ali Shaikh, Abdul Hussain Shaikh, Asif Ali Murtuja Shaikh and Shanhan Asif Ali Turki - were also nabbed by local police and have been booked for staging the protest purely to make it look the two parties had taken to streets against each other.

The visuals of the car on fire was aired on most national channels and had triggered tension in the city and many parts of the state, reported Zee News.

However, if they do get bail from a court, one thing's for sure the four, who seem to have enough money to burn, are unlikely to face much trouble in posting it.

The burning of the car came a day after the MNS party chief Thackeray car was attacked by NCP cadre in Ahmednagar and was believed as being an escalation of tensions between the two parties.

The two parties have been at loggerheads since Thackeray made speeches in which he blamed Agriculture minister and NCP party chief Sharad Pawar for the ongoing drought in the state. What irked the NCP was that the speeches were made in strongholds of the NCP in the state like Kolhapur and Solapur in western Maharashtra.