Attacks on Hindus and Hindu Dharma, both in Bharat and overseas, are frequent and unrelenting. In many regions of the world, this persecution is like a genocide slowly unfolding before our eyes. For decades, the world has ignored the actual depth and breadth of these attacks, driven by disturbing anti-Hindu bigotry. From murders, forced conversions, land grabs, assault on festivals, desecration of temples and murtis, hate speech, and sexual violence to institutionalized & legal discrimination, Hindus are facing an increasing assault on their very existence along with an unprecedented Hindu hatred.

In this weekly summary for the period from 25 December to 31 December 2022, we hope to provide a snapshot of such crimes and hopefully awaken more people around the world to this human rights crisis:

Bharat

1) TV actor Sheezan Khan has been arrested after late actress Tunisha Sharma’s mother filed a complaint and claimed that they both were in a relationship and she took this extreme step because of him. A Mumbai court has sent him to police custody for four days.

2) A padre from a local church has been arrested over an alleged case of forced religious conversion in Rampur. The accused padre, Polo Messiah, has been booked under sections of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, police said.

3) The Principal and Siksha Mitra of a government school in Uttar Pradesh have been booked for making students recite an Islamic prayer. The matter came to light after Vishwa Hindu Parishad complained about it with a video of the students reciting a prayer said in madrasas. Recently a video of students of a government school in Bareilly saying Islamist writer Muhammad Iqbal’s poem as morning prayer.

4) Locals of a village in Gujarat protested against building a church superseding the local panchayat’s decision to not allow it. The villagers say that there are no Christians in the village and thus no need for a church. They submitted a memorandum to the district collector demanding strict action.

5) Reports of people performing namaz in public have repeatedly emerged from different parts of the country. Two incidents of namaz being offered at Vadodara’s Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) on December 25 and 26 have come to light. Videos of both incidents have gone viral on social media (SM).

6) Ex-Idol Wing IG Pon Manickavel has complained that a 1000-year-old temple is missing from a village in Tamil Nadu. He has accused the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) department of failing to even notice that such a temple existed once. He alleges that the temple was disintegrated pillar by the pillar and could have been smuggled as there is no trace of its ruins. Stone and panchaloha murtis of the deities are also missing.

7) Hindu SC man kills himself after his wife was raped and threatened by Muslim youth in Rajasthan’s Barmer.

8) Sahajadi & 2 others arrested for threatening Nishad family to convert to Islam in Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur District. A police official said the incident took place at the minority-dominated Jafrabad locality where a family of one Deepa Nishad, the complainant, lives. The family was allegedly harassed by their neighbours. He said the FIR was lodged against three women — Sahajadi, Moharma and Sahiba — and four men Amirzade, Irfan, Sonu and Afreed.

9) According to authorities, three young missionaries, including two females, were arrested by Karnataka police on Monday for allegedly trying to coerce a Hindu family into becoming Christians in Karnataka.

10) In a spine-chilling case, Wasi Ahmed is accused of murdering his wife Uma Sharma alias Arfa Fatima. The police recovered the victim’s body on December 24 from her bedroom in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri District.

11) There has been a massive security lapse at Thiruvananthapuram Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple. Andhra Pradesh natives celebrated Christmas by lighting candles inside the Temple. The incident happened on Sunday.

12) At a time when the construction of a grand temple at the Shri Ram Janambhoomi continues in full swing, Maulana Sajid Rashidi, the chairman of All India Imam Association stoked controversy by saying that after 100 years when Muslims come to power in Bharat, the Ram temple at Ayodhya will be demolished and a mosque will be built at its place.

13) Three neo-Buddhist converts arrested for burning Hindu granthas after protest by locals in Rajasthan’s Barmer District.

Pakistan

Abduction, rape, forced conversion, and marriage of minor Hindu girls are common occurrences in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. At least 1000 minority girls suffer such sex slavery every year in Sindh province alone. Apart from this, Pakistani Hindus face systemic and institutionalized discrimination and neglect, such as frequent attacks on Hindu temples, demonization of education curriculum, police and judicial antipathy, denial of fundamental rights, and even untouchability. This latest instance of the brutal rape and murder of a Bheel woman in Pakistan is yet another proof of the pitiable condition of Hindu minorities in Pakistan.

1) A horrific incident of a 42-year-old Bheel woman being gang-raped and brutally murdered has emerged from Pakistan’s Sindh. The victim has been identified as Diya Bheel who, as per reports, was first gang-raped and later her head and breasts were chopped off. The demonic accused went as far as de-skinning her head before disposing of her dead body along with the de-skinned head in a wheat field.

Bangladesh

Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh are relentless and designed to cleanse the religious minority from the country gradually. According to a study by Prof. Abul Barakat of Dhaka University, no Hindus will be left in Bangladesh by 2050 due to systemic and institutionalized persecution. Temple desecration, land grabbing, mob attacks after false blasphemy charges, rape/forced conversion of women, and hate speech are tools used to intimidate and drive Hindus out.

1) Human rights activists are reporting that a girl named Lavanya Rajbanshi (20) has been abducted and murdered in Munshiganj district, Bangladesh. Lavanya was reportedly abducted on December 21 by one Saju Mia (25) and his accomplices Iftekhar Hossain (35), Chan Mia (50), Raju Mia and a woman Seema Akter (40). She was forcefully converted to Islam and married Saju Mia. But within three days of this ‘wedding’, Lavanya (aka Nusrat Jahan, her post-conversion name) was murdered, allegedly by Saju Mia.

2) A Hindu man, Bablu Chandra Shil, has been missing for over 40 days since his abduction from Phulbari upazila of Kurigram district, Bangladesh. On the night of November 17, Bablu was beaten and kidnapped from a salon shop in the local Newashi market.

Most hate crimes are driven by anti-Hindu bigotry encoded in certain religious teachings and political ideologies. While the anti-Hindu hate in Islamic countries is evident, there is another subtler form of anti-Hindu sentiment within institutions and the public sphere of ostensibly secular states (like India) that provides an enabling environment for Hinduphobia and hate crimes. This subtle, everyday discrimination can be missed unless one studies prevailing laws and patterns. The gradual ban on firecrackers during Diwali is a good example – it might seem pollution-related on the surface. Still, the double standards at play become apparent when one looks at the larger picture of restrictions on Hindu festivals and the lack of sound reasoning behind the ban.

We request all readers to share other anti-Hindu hate crimes that we might have missed in this period in the comments below or by dropping an email to [email protected]. We also solicit support in maintaining the Hindu human rights tracker database.