SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that it has arrested a man sent by South Korean spies to destroy statues of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founding president and the grandfather of its current leader, Kim Jong-un.

Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994 after a 46-year rule, is still revered as a godlike figure among most North Koreans. Destroying statues of him, placed prominently in all major North Korean towns, would be the boldest idea conceived by defectors from the North who have campaigned to topple the North Korean government since arriving in the South.

A group of defectors has claimed that it was dedicated to sabotaging Kim Il-sung statues, though its leader said Friday that it has never implemented its plan, calling North Korea’s assertion a “fabrication.” The South Korean government also dismissed the claim as “propaganda.”

“Destroying a statue is the most hideous insult to our supreme authority and our people and is an act of war no less serous than an armed invasion,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Friday.