The Norwegian police are looking for a vandal who plunged the nation into shock by defacing 92 headstones in Åssiden in Buskerud County near Oslo, the tabloid daily Verdens Gang reported.
The graves were vandalized using red paint, which was also applied on the historic Åssiden Church in Drammen.
"I have not seen such comprehensive damage of this kind before," unit leader Marianne Mørk of the South East police district said.
Police also said that the type of paint used on the headstones and the church is likely to be expensive to remove.
Åssiden Churchyard manager Stig Indregård voiced his despair over the incident.
"What somebody has done to a churchyard is awful," Indregård told the local newspaper Drammens Tidende.
On Facebook, reports of the incident gathered dozens of angry comments from ordinary Norwegians who voiced an array of emotions ranging from rage to despair and shame over the blatant act of vandalism.
The local police are reportedly looking for an adult man who they think may be linked to the incident, owing to a company name mixed up in the incident seen as a clue. According to Mørk, the man in question had previously been rejected during a job interview.
"The name of the company has been tagged on to all of the headstones, and the individual under our suspicion did something similar a couple of weeks ago," Mørk said. According to the report, some of the headstones were also tagged with numbers.
The churchyard had been closed while the police carried out the investigation, but has since been reopened.
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