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 15 January to 21 January 2023, we hope to provide a snapshot of such crimes and hopefully awaken more people around the world to this human rights crisis:

Bharat

1) One Asim Hussain (46) was thrashed by fellow train passengers in Moradabad, UP on Friday after he molested a woman passenger. After initially staying quiet, Hussain lodged a complaint a day later after allegedly being instigated by some reporters to give a religious spin to the incident and alleged that he was assaulted for ‘refusing to chant Jai Sri Ram’. He added that ‘his beard was pulled’, for good effect.

2) A minor 15-year-old girl who had run away from home after a tiff with her family was lured and gang-raped by two Muslim e-rickshaw drivers in Ghaziabad, UP.

3) The Dhangri killings in J&K’s Rajouri district prove the strike-at-will capability of the terror network. Why the terrorists choose Dhangri may be a part of the probe, which has been taken over by the NIA. The village is Hindu-dominated and the attack was aimed to create fear.

4) A DMK man has been booked for harassing SC Hindu women while they were bathing in a public pond. The man hurled casteist abuses at them and threw away their clothes. Despite filing a complaint, he is evading arrest reportedly due to political influence.

5) Hindu girl gang-raped by lawyer husband Mohammad Alam aka ‘Anuj’ and his brothers.

6) “Only Islam gives the message of love”, says Bihar Education Minister Chandrashekhar Yadav who had earlier said that Manusmriti, Ramcharitmanas by Goswami Tulsidas and Bunch of Thoughts by Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar should be burnt.

7) Balrampur hospital was converted into a Dawah centre and Hindu SC workers were forcefully converted to Islam by Maulana Jalaluddin.

8) Police in Prayagraj, UP have arrested three Islamists, including a madrasa teacher, who were part of a religious conversion racket at the ongoing annual Magh Mela.

9) In an attempt to erase its Hindu identity, Jallikattu bull owners were asked not to apply Chandan, Kumkum and turmeric when they bring the bulls for Jallikattu events. The Jallikattu Association condemned this move and protested against it.

10) Islamic conversion mafia is reportedly active in Maharashtra’s Daund, a town located in the Pune district. According to reports, more than 200 Hindu girls and boys have been forcibly converted. Kamel Qureshi alias Haji Saheb, who is currently in prison, is believed to be the mastermind behind the forced conversion racket.

11) Two Muslim men, Mohammad Rizwan and Zulqarnain, were arrested by the police on January 5, Thursday for gangraping a minor physically impaired Hindu girl in the Bachhrawan area of Rae Bareli district in Uttar Pradesh.

12) A minor Hindu girl (14) from the Scheduled Caste (SC) Nat community was abducted, physically assaulted, forcibly converted and married, and gang-raped while being held in illegal confinement for 11 long years by a Muslim man and his family. She also gave birth to two children in this period, before finally managing to escape at age 25. Along with the aid of a female relative, she finally went to the police to lodge a complaint.

13) DMK ally politician sends goons to demolish the temple at midnight to encroach temple land.

14) Muslim stalker identified as Shehbaz molests and threatens to kill a Hindu girl. However, Islamist propagandists smear Hindu men who come to her defence in MP’s (Madhya Pradesh) Khandwa.

15) In yet another grooming case, Pune resident Sadan Khan is accused of befriending a Hindu girl on Instagram by posing as Abhinav. He is said to have made an obscene video of the girl and was blackmailing her using the video. Khan resides in Sangamwadi’s Tadiwala Road in Pune.

16) Sujith Bhakthan is one of the most prominent travel Bloggers from Kerala, with over 20 lakh subscribers to his channel on YouTube. He recently visited Shri Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya and uploaded the video, following which he now faces death threats from radical Islamists.

17) A Muslim man in Karnataka, with whom a Hindu woman — a mother of four had allegedly eloped, has been taken into custody by the police, an official said on Friday. Prakash Gujarati, a resident of Gadag — a goldsmith by profession, has alleged that his wife Hemavathy, had left him and married Maqbool Bayabadaki, a resident of Savanur.

Bangladesh

Attacks on minority 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) In a pre-planned murder, five members of the minority community were burnt alive in Chittagong’s Rangunia on January 12 (Tweet archived here).

2) Many shops and homes of minorities were vandalized in Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’s parliamentary seat of Gopalganj’s Kandhi on the night of January 15 (Tweet archived here).

World

1) A video has emerged in which former Pakistani cricketer turned Tablighi Jamaat proselytizer Saeed Anwar claims that South African ex-cricketer Hashim Amla has converted an entire Hindu family into Islam.

2) With Dravidianist influence on the rise, Malaysian media appears to be encouraging Christian appropriation of Hindu practices. The Sun, a free national daily reported Christians celebrate Thai Pongal, a Tamil Hindu festival in a church, on its first page. Efforts are already on to appropriate Pongal in Bharat with Dravidians and Tamil nationalists spreading lies that it is a secular festival.

3) The historic Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple in Carrum Downs, Victoria, is the second temple to be vandalized in a span of a few days. The vandalism comes just days after the BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir in Mill Park was vandalised by anti-Bharat supporters.

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.