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 17 to 23 September 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) A contentious situation has unfolded as the Church of Sign and Wonder, located in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, along with a pastor from Punjab, faces allegations of targeting Hindus for conversion activities.

2) A shocking case of love jihad has come to light in the Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh where a 22-year-old Muslim man named Afsar Raini pretended to be Rahul and befriended a minor Hindu girl after which he tricked her into a relationship and raped her. Furthermore, he recorded obscene video of the 16-year-old and utilised it to sexually assault her for four years.

3) In another shocking incident has surfaced in the Harbansh Mohal police station neighbourhood in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. A Hindu woman was found in a hotel room in Ghantaghar with two Muslim guys from Agra while her husband kept pleading for help from outside the place.

4) TN (Tamil Nadu) police put up with unrealistic restrictions curbing Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.

5) A Hindu jeweller’s wife from UP’s (Uttar Pradesh) Kanpur was brainwashed into conversion to Islam via a mobile app. She later tried to convert her minor son and husband’s family too.

6) A 30-year-old young man identified as Malkit Singh alias Veeru was allegedly beaten to death by four of his friends, including Tasavvur and Faizal, for allegedly raising the ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ slogan after watching Sunny Deol starrer film Gadar 2 on his mobile phone. He was beaten so severely that he succumbed to his injuries.

7) Tamil Nadu police arrested 2 Muslim brothers who threw Molotov cocktails, aka petrol bombs, at their own house to implicate their Hindu neighbour. They wanted the neighbour to vacate his house, which he refused to comply with. They came up with a plan to implicate him in a crime and staged it by throwing kerosene-filled bottles at their own house. The accused were identified as Sultan and Abdul Samad, sons of Alauddin (70), who run a textile shop in Kumbakonam.

8) A complaint was filed against Kudmi leader of West Bengal Ajit Mahato who made sacrilegious remarks against Devi Durga and Devi Saraswati.

9) Seven cryptos were held for luring people to convert to Christianity in Rae Bareli. It must be highlighted that 90 such arrests have been made in UP in the last 9 months.

10) On September 17, the Telangana police arrested a man named Mohammed Shabad in connection to the rape of a 19-year-old girl at the ESI hospital in the Sanathnagar area of Hyderabad.

11) A heart-wrenching case of Love Jihad was reported from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur where a 51-year-old Nabi Alam Khan trapped a 20-year-old Hindu girl and raped her several times. As per reports, the middle-aged man, Nabi Alam lured the girl under the guise of extra salary, and later in the pretext of marriage, he raped the victim girl multiple times. However, the victim’s harrowing experience didn’t end there as she was repeatedly physically abused and beaten by Nabi’s wife and son. His wife and son helped him in forcing the victim to undergo an abortion.

12) On the occasion of Ganesh Chathurthi, celebrated on 18 September in Tamil Nadu, several celebrities wished their followers. However, one celebrity’s wife, Zafroon Nizar, made Hinduphobic posts to “educate” her followers about Hindu Dharma and Islam. Zafroon Nizar is none other than the Muslim wife of Yuvan Shankar Raja, a prominent Tamil film composer and the son of renowned music maestro Ilayaraaja. Yuvan embraced Islam in 2014, became Abdul Haliq, and within a year, marriage was arranged between him and designer Zafroon Nizar.

13) A Class 8 student in UP’s Bareilly was detained for threatening to blow up Ram Mandir.

14) In a love jihad case reported from Madhya Pradesh, Salman posed as ‘Kushawa’ trapped a Hindu woman who was raped and impregnated by him. He then forced her to abort and hid the foetus in a deserted area.

15) In a distressing incident in Srinivasa Colony, Srungavarapukota, Vizianagaram, a local pastor raised objections against the celebration of Ganesh Chathurthi, prompting a series of events that have left the Hindu community feeling aggrieved and their religious festivities disrupted.

16) A man, identified as Anwar a.k.a Pyarejaan who is a resident of Paparajanahalli in Kolar Rural police station limits, was arrested for colouring boulders in green and drawing Islamic symbols atop a hill in a painting at the ancient Hindu pilgrimage centre of Antharagange Shiv mandir in Karnataka’s Kolar district.

17) Shocking visuals of Tamil Nadu police brutality on Hindus as cops forcibly removed Ganesha murtis have surfaced on social media. Hindu women have alleged molestation and physical abuse at the hands of cops, and videos of children tearfully describing how their mothers were disrobed show the state of Hindus in the DMK-ruled state.

18) The MHB Police Station has booked the Director of a prominent Christian education mission for allegedly hurling caste slurs at a technical education institution’s director-principal, torturing and making him and his students clean toilets. The complaint was lodged by an academic, Santosh Pandurang Shinde, 46, Director-Principal of Ava Elma Vocational Educational Pvt. Ltd., the MHB Police have registered an FIR against Fr. Corlis Noel Gonsalves, Director, Bosco Boys Home, according to lawyer Nitin Satpute.

19) In MP’s Gwalior, a Hindu family was attacked by Muslim neighbours, because they were performing the ‘aarti’ of Bhagwan Ganesh. As per the information, the Muslim youth Salman and Chhotu Khan attacked the family with Lathis and blades, when they were peacefully doing bhajans and aarti.

20) Mount Thangjing, which is a sacred site of Manipur’s Meitei community, was reportedly desecrated by erecting a cross. There are allegations accusing Kukis of desecrating the holy mount earlier this month.

21) The Thane police arrested a man from West Bengal for the alleged murder of his live-in partner at Bhiwandi. The accused, identified as Shabhir D. Sheikh of Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, was booked for allegedly killing his live-in partner identified as Madhu Prajapati, 35, a week ago.

22) In a Love jihad case reported from Lucknow, Shoaib befriended a Dalit girl by posing as Saurabh. He later raped her and recorded the act, and forced her to convert to Islam.

23) A case of love jihad has come to light from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh where a guy reached Mohanlalganj police station and informed that his minor sister had run away with a Muslim individual. The Muslim man befriended the minor Hindu girl by wearing the Hindu symbols Kalawa and Tilak. Subsequently, he eloped with her after brainwashing the girl.

24) The police have registered a case against a youth from Jammu and Kashmir following a complaint by a woman software professional who claimed that the man — with whom she was in a relationship — forced her to adopt Islam. The FIR has been booked against Mojeef Ashraf Baig, who used to reside at Shikaripalya in Electronics City in Bengaluru. 

25) In a shocking incident, a 7th-grade student was severely beaten and abused by the headmistress of Allikalli Village Primary School in KGF (Kolar Gold Fields) Taluk in Karnataka for worshipping Sri Ganesh. Bhavyashree’s left hand was fractured as a result of the severity of the punishment. The accused, Hemalatha was suspended on 20 September after the girl’s family members lodged a complaint with the block education officer. Hemlatha was also directed to take care of the medical expenses of the student.

26) Three people, including a couple, have been arrested for theft of about forty temple lamps from Sridurga Bhadradevi Yogeeshwara temple at Kalari Athiparampil in Ambipoika in Kollam district. Prasad (Salim-46), a native of Kannur, his wife Haseena (43) of Chirayinkeeezhu Perumathura in Thiruvananthapuram district, and Mazhar (52) of Kollam Corporation were caught by the Kundera police. Prasad adopted the name Salim after marriage.

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) On September 19, unknown miscreants broke the Murtis of Maa Durga and Bhagwan Ganesh in Faridpur. The murtis were being made for the upcoming Durga Puja in a temple at Tambulkhana Bazar under the Kaijuri Union of Faridpur district. Hands and other parts of the Maa Durga and Sri Ganesh were broken.

2) An Islamic radical mob attacked minority citizens belonging to the Rabidas community in Srimangal.

3) Another case of attack and Murti vandalism was reported from the Habiganj district of Bangladesh. Islamic radical mob attacked Vishwakarma Puja Mandap. They also vandalised the Murti of Baba Vishwakarma. The incident happened at Rameswar village of Chhatiain union under Madhavpur Police Station of Habiganj district.

World

1) On 19 September (local time), a police officer identified as Adam Ahmed used excessive force on an elderly Hindu priest of Indian origin during the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Leicester in the UK. The videos of the incident went viral on social media, where Ahmed was seen behaving rudely with the priest and the Hindu devotees who tried to stop him.

2) Stating that pro-Khalistan Sikhs have always been loyal to Canada, Gurpatwant Pannun, leader of radical Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), threatened Indo-Canadian Hindus and asked them to leave the country in a video which went viral on social media.

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 emailing [email protected]. We also solicit support in maintaining the Hindu human rights tracker database.