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 true depth and breadth of these attacks, driven by disturbing anti-Hindu bigotry, have been ignored by the world. From murders, forced conversions, land grabs, assault on festivals, desecration of temples and murtis, hate speech, 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 16 January to 22 January 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) In a display of racism and bigotry, NPR (National Public Radio) journalist Lauren Frayer put out a tweet maligning Bharat and its people.

2) A man who converted out of Hindu Dharma has been arrested for vandalizing murtis in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. The Ganesha temple in a village in Dindigul was vandalized by one Balakrishnan, a crypto convert, who has confessed his crime.

3) The body of 75-year-old Shanthakumari was discovered from a house at Vizhinjam near Kovalam beach, Thiruvananthapuram. She had been hit on the head with a hammer, strangled with a shawl and her gold ornaments were missing. Kerala Police arrested Rafeeqa Beevi (50), her son Shafiq (23), and Rafeeqa’s boyfriend Al Amin (26) within an hour of the cold-blooded murder.

4) A 16-year-old girl was raped by a 39-year-old pastor of a church in Songadh taluka in the Tapi district of Gujarat. Shockingly, the wife of the pastor in question took videos and photos of the alleged sexual assault to blackmail the minor.

5) An ancient Hindu temple has been burnt down, again, in Kashmir. The thousands of years old Mata Tripur Sundari temple located in a remote forest area near Devsar town, district Kulgam, south Kashmir, was burnt on the intervening night of 13th and 14th January. The same temple had been burnt down three decades back by religious zealots and was being recently reconstructed by Hindu groups.

6) Forts in Maharashtra are increasingly coming under the grip of Islamists who are raising illegal constructions within the premises of iconic forts in addition to falsifying history by inventing fictional characters.

7) Even as the two-month-long Sabarimala temple darshan season came to an end, a teller was caught stealing currencies from the Sabarimala temple collections. He was employed by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) and is the second one to be caught red-handed this season.

8) Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) vigilance officials confirmed that the Thiruvabharanam (antique gold ornaments) belonging to the Shangumugham Devi temple in Thiruvananthapuram were stolen by none other than their own officials. Devaswom vigilance has filed a report against four TDB officials in the case. According to the report, a criminal case should be registered against those involved, including Thiruvananthapuram Group Assistant Commissioner SR Sajin.

9) A shocking incident of the body of a BSF (Border Security Force) jawan killed at the Bangladesh border in Malda having been recovered from a canal has surfaced from West Bengal. The incident was reported on Monday, January 10. As per police sources, the deceased victim has been identified as 29-year-old Vivek Tiwari who was a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.

10) Unable to bear the pressure to embrace Christianity, a 17-year-old girl has committed suicide in Tamil Nadu. The girl is said to have lost her mother and was enrolled in a government-aided Christian school with a boarding facility when she was 13 years old. The girl had refused to convert to Christianity as a result of which she was reportedly made to clean toilets and hostel rooms. The warden has been arrested but police have denied any conversion angle in the incident and threatened to book those who share her dying declaration.

11) As per reports, more than 25 families from Surana village in Ratlam District had threatened to migrate from the village citing harassment by members of the Muslim community for the past two and half years. However, intervention by the administration has prevented the same.

12) Hindu Hajong and Buddhist Chakma refugees, who moved to Bharat from the Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) region of then East Pakistan (Bangladesh) between 1964 and 1966 to escape religious persecution, now find themselves on the verge of being pushed out of Arunachal Pradesh (AP) as well.

Bangladesh

1) The incident of 35 Saraswati murtis being destroyed in one night has been reported from the port city of Chittagong where the earthen murtis of Maa Saraswati made for the upcoming puja were vandalized by unidentified miscreants.

2) After Selina Hayat Ivy Rahman, another Awami League leader MP Shah Alam has been accused of committing land jihad on Hindu-owned properties. The incident has surfaced from Banaripara Upazila Sadar of Barisal where decedents of martyred intellectual Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta have alleged that their land was seized and included in the Banaripara Girls Secondary School premises in the presence of the Barisal-2 constituency’s MP who is also the chairman of the school management committee.

World

1) 63-year-old Mohammed Raheesh Isoof of Christchurch, a Fiji-born New Zealand resident was found guilty of multiple murders and attempted murder in Fiji. Isoof murdered three adults, two young children and attempted to murder an 11-month old by abandoning her on top of a mountain. His victims were all Hindus. 

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 obvious, 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, but the double standards at play become clear 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 the maintenance of the Hindu human rights tracker database started by us.