New Delhi: Mumbai police arrested a 36-year-old man from Gujarat late on Wednesday night for allegedly tweeting a threat to rape Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi's young daughter.

Mumbai police sources said the suspect, Girish Maheshwari, described himself as an "accounting associate at Bharatiya Janata Party" in his Facebook account.

"We are questioning him to ascertain whether he was indeed associated with the party and worked with one of its units, or whether he is just bluffing," an officer said.

The arrest came two days after Union home minister Rajnath Singh had intervened and asked the police of Mumbai, where Chaturvedi lives, and Delhi, which she regularly visits, to register cases and identify the troll. Rajnath's ministry had also asked Twitter to furnish details of the account.

"We zeroed in on the suspect after getting details from Twitter," a Mumbai police officer said.

Mumbai deputy commissioner of police Deepak Deoraj said a team had been sent to Gujarat to probe the case. "The accused was arrested from Bavla near Ahmedabad."

A Mumbai court has remanded Maheshwari in police custody till July 10. He has been charged with insulting the modesty of a woman and offences under the Information Technology Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

A troll account that went by the name "Jai Shri Ram" had fired a tweet on Sunday asking Chaturvedi to send her 10-year-old daughter over to be raped.

"We are probing why he wrote such a vile tweet, what the provocation was," the Mumbai police officer said.

Chaturvedi has thanked Rajnath and the police of Mumbai and Delhi for their "prompt response and action".

She said the trolls in particular targeted women who held opinions different from theirs. "I would want the government to come down heavily on these trolls and give exemplary punishment to them," she said.

Several tweeters too demanded stringent punishment for the man behind the rape threat.

Maheswari's arrest comes against the backdrop of intense trolling of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj for transferring a Lucknow passport official accused of harassing an inter-faith couple. Most BJP leaders and ministers had kept mum instead of jumping to Sushma's support.

An internal probe by the ministry on Wednesday vindicated Sushma, saying the official had exceeded his brief by demanding to see the couple's marriage certificate and had allegedly asked offensive questions about their religions.