Harshu Thakur, a dedicated Hindu activist from Nanded, Maharashtra, has endured years of relentless Hinduphobic persecution that escalated from vicious online campaigns into a savage physical assault on 11 October 2025. Known for her fearless defense of Hindu identity, support for vulnerable Hindu communities including transgender individuals, and vocal opposition to the denigration of Hindu deities, she became the prime target of coordinated Islamist harassment involving hundreds of death and rape threats, doxxing of her and her family, and morphed obscene videos laced with religious slurs. This multi-year ordeal culminated in a brutal stabbing attack by assailants linked to the same online hate networks, leaving her with severe injuries and exposing the deadly consequences of unchecked Hinduphobia.

As per her recent statements, despite filing multiple FIRs in several districts, most in Nanded, the local police have failed to arrest even a single accused Islamists. The prime accused Salman Sheikh still openly threatens Harshu Thakur. Exhausted Harshu Thakur now says that she will take her own life as there is no value to the lives of Hindu activists in Bharat. Several attacks on her life has happened already. There is a real, imminent threat to her life. And yet the police have reportedly taken no action.

A committed Hindu activist

Harshu Thakur is a young Hindu activist from Nanded in Maharashtra, known for her unapologetic defence of Hindu identity and for supporting vulnerable Hindu communities, including Hindu transgender persons. Her activism has focused on calling out abuse of Hindu deities, resisting attempts at forced or deceptive religious conversion, and publicly asserting Hindu civil rights in the face of growing online and offline hostility.​

For years, she used social media to document abuse against Hindus and to mobilize support for victims, which made her a visible and vocal face of grassroots Hindu activism. This visibility, coupled with her firm ideological stance, placed her directly in the crosshairs of Islamist elements and coordinated anti-Hindu troll networks that sought to intimidate her into silence.​

Years of coordinated threats

The harassment campaign against Harshu was not sporadic but sustained and organized, stretching over several years and involving hundreds of explicit death and rape threats. Messages directed at her routinely referenced her Hindu identity, her defence of Hindu deities and her activism, making it clear that she was being targeted precisely because she refused to back down from her Hindu cause.​

These threats were amplified by troll accounts that engaged in mass-tagging, dogpiling and coordinated abuse, turning her social media timelines and inboxes into spaces of constant intimidation. Despite multiple complaints raised by her and by those supporting her, the response from authorities remained lethargic, enabling the hatred and incitement to grow more brazen over time.​

Doxxing of Harshu and her family

The campaign escalated beyond verbal threats into direct endangerment of Harshu’s safety through doxxing, with personal and familial details pushed into hostile networks. Addresses, phone numbers and identifying information linked to her and her family were circulated with the clear intention of widening the target zone and making it possible for attackers to locate her offline.​

This deliberate exposure of her private information multiplied the risk to her loved ones and turned everyday activities into potential security threats, since anyone influenced by the online hate barrage could now track her down. It marked a decisive step in transforming virtual hatred into operational groundwork for physical assault.​

Denigration of Hindu deities and symbols

The attack on Harshu cannot be separated from the broader environment of online Hinduphobia, where Hindu deities and symbols are routinely mocked, sexualized and abused to normalize hatred against Hindus. An extensive investigation by DFRAC exposed a global troll network that systematically produced obscene, extremely derogatory content targeting Hindu gods and rituals, often using slurs and vulgar imagery to generate engagement.​

These accounts, many of them anonymous or parody-style, repeatedly used Hindu religious icons in humiliating contexts, making open contempt for Hindu beliefs appear fashionable and consequence-free in certain online circles. Harshu, who openly challenged such content and called it out, naturally became a prime target for the same ecosystem that thrives on anti-Hindu hatred.​

Sexualized digital violence against Harshu

As part of the campaign to break her spirit and discredit her, Harshu’s image was allegedly used in morphed pornographic or obscene material, combined with abusive text and religious slurs. These morphed videos and edited photos were circulated with the intention of shaming her, undermining her credibility as an activist and inflicting deep psychological trauma.

​The case involving Salman Sheikh represents one of the most disturbing episodes in the sustained campaign of Islamist harassment against Harshu Thakur. According to Harshu’s formal complaint filed at the Airport Police Station, Nanded, Salman Sheikh, identifying himself as Sheikh Salman Sheikh Yusuf, initiated contact through repeated phone calls beginning 20 September 2025. In these conversations, he unleashed a torrent of filthy and demeaning abuses, calling her “Rand” and “Randi” (Prostitute) and repeatedly mocking her activism for the Hindu cause.

When Harshu confronted him and asked for his name and address, he brazenly introduced himself, displaying no fear of law enforcement. He taunted her, saying, “You speak ill words against the Muslim community,” and openly dared her to take legal action, boasting, “File an FIR, do whatever you want—it doesn’t make any difference to me. I don’t follow the Constitution. I’ll deal with you.” His language reflected not only personal hostility but also deep-seated religious animosity and contempt for the state’s legal authority and Hindus.

The harassment did not stop at verbal abuse. Salman Sheikh escalated his campaign by morphing Harshu’s photographs using AI to create obscene and defamatory videos designed to humiliate her publicly. In one such fabricated clip, he placed her image beside that of a Middle Eastern man dressed as a Sheikh, with a caption in Hindi claiming, “Hindustan ki ai ladki khudko bhagwadhari samajhne wali sheikh ko 5,00,000 rupaye mein Saudi Arabia mein bech di gayi hai” (“This girl from Bharat, who considers herself saffron-clad, has been sold to a Sheikh in Saudi Arabia for five lakh rupees”). This malicious video, shared online, was meant to humiliate Harshu, damage her reputation, and shame her as a Hindu woman. It used both sexist and religious stereotypes, portraying her as disgraced and “sold” to Muslims—a common communal tactic used to insult and silence Hindu women who speak up or stand for their faith.

Harshu reported that Salman Sheikh continued his abuse over WhatsApp and voice calls, even after she filed her complaint. His language was laden with sexual obscenity, mixing personal threats with blasphemous references to Hinduism. He repeatedly called her a “prostitute,” mocked her saffron identity, and issued death threats, saying he would “deal with her” for speaking out against Muslims.

This form of digital sexual violence mirrors patterns seen against other women activists and journalists, but in Harshu’s case it was further laced with explicit Hinduphobia and threats of physical harm. The goal was clear: to dehumanize her as a Hindu woman activist so thoroughly that physical attack would appear “justified” to those already radicalized by hate content.​

The brutal 11 October 2025 assault

The culmination of this long campaign of hate came on 11 October 2025, when Harshu was violently attacked in Nanded. Advocacy accounts and legal support groups have reported that she suffered multiple stab wounds and serious injuries in an assault linked to Islamist individuals who had previously been associated with the online ecosystem targeting her.​

The main accused, identified as Salman Sheikh, has been named publicly by legal aid and Hindu rights accounts, which have stated that he posed a real and ongoing threat to Harshu’s life even after the initial attack. The assault is not an isolated act of street violence; it is the direct and predictable outcome of failed enforcement against explicit, documented online threats that had warned of such an attack.​

Outrage over police response

Instead of moving swiftly against the accused, local police in Nanded are alleged to have dragged their feet in arresting Sheikh and other perpetrators, prompting widespread anger among Hindu organizations and civil society supporters of Harshu. When Harshu publicly protested this inaction and demanded the arrest of her attacker, she herself was detained by the police, a move that has been condemned as victimization.​

Hindu rights groups and legal activists have sharply criticized the Maharashtra police leadership, arguing that authorities have effectively sent a chilling message to Hindu activists: even if they survive an attempted killing after years of documented threats, they cannot count on the system to protect them. They insist that all appropriate sections related to attempted murder, organized hate, cyberstalking, sexual harassment and religiously motivated violence must be robustly applied in this case.​

Harshu’s case within Hinduphobia data

Hinduphobia Tracker has placed Harshu’s ordeal within a larger documented pattern of Hinduphobic incidents, including temple attacks, desecration of religious symbols and targeted violence against Hindu individuals. In their taxonomy, Harshu’s case stands out because it cuts across nearly every major category: online threats, hate speech, doxxing, denigration of deities, sexualized digital abuse and finally a near-fatal physical assault. It is being highlighted as a textbook example of how unchecked online Hinduphobia can evolve into bloodshed when state machinery fails to treat early warning signs with seriousness.​

Need for swift justice and defence of Hindus

In the aftermath of the October attack, there is a justified demand from Hindu groups, legal activists and concerned citizens for immediate and uncompromising action in support of Harshu Thakur. This include swift arrest and prosecution of all accused, recognition of the hate-crime and Hinduphobic dimensions of the case, and institutional accountability for repeated police inaction in the face of documented threats.

​Curbing such hate crimes against Hindus in Bharat demands unapologetic clarity, political will and structural reform, not mere statements of concern. The system must move from passive reaction to proactive protection of Hindu lives, temples and activists.

Police and prosecutors must treat Hinduphobic hate—online and offline—as an aggravating factor, applying stringent sections for hate crimes, conspiracy, cyberstalking, sexual harassment and attempted murder in a time-bound manner. Courts should prioritise such cases with fast-track procedures, ensuring that those who threaten, assault or attempt to kill Hindu activists face swift, exemplary punishment that acts as a true deterrent.

There should be a national mechanism to document and monitor Hinduphobic incidents: temple attacks, assault cases, online threats, doxxing and targeted harassment of Hindu individuals. Regular public reports and legislative oversight will force accountability, expose patterns, and prevent officials from dismissing such crimes as “isolated” or “personal” disputes.

Social media platforms operating in Bharat must be compelled, through a clear legal framework, to promptly act against accounts that incite violence, morph images, abuse deities or openly call for attacks on Hindus. Coordinated troll networks targeting Hindus should be treated as organized hate infrastructure, with specialized cyber cells mandated to map them, file cases and follow through to arrests.

Activists who receive repeated threats should not be left to fend for themselves; standardized threat-assessment and protection protocols must be put in place, including police liaison officers, emergency helplines, and, where needed, personal security and relocation support. Hindu women and gender-minority activists, who face sexualized and religiously loaded abuse, must have fast, direct access to responsive legal and psychological support systems.

Finally, leaders across institutions need to clearly acknowledge Hinduphobia as a real and dangerous form of bigotry, on par with other religious hate, and condemn it without false equivalence or hesitation. Schools, universities and media must speak openly about the dignity and rights of Hindus, so that the next generation recognises that targeting Hindus, their temples and their deities is not “edgy dissent” but a serious crime against society that will be neither normalised nor tolerated.