Shakeel behind bars for molesting a 6-year-old Dalit girl, hurling casteist slurs when her family members caught him

Case ID : 04aed49 | Location : Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 20 August, 2024

Case ID : 04aed49

Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India

20 August, 2024

Shakeel behind bars for molesting a 6-year-old Dalit girl, hurling casteist slurs when her family members caught him

Hate speech against Hindus

Violent threats

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Kotwali Nagar police station area of Aligarh district, Uttar Pradesh, a person from the Jatav community lodged a complaint with the police on August 21, 2024. The complainant said that his 6-year-old daughter had suddenly disappeared while playing outside their house. When the family started searching, they saw a 45-year-old man named Shakeel alias Cheta with the girl. Shakeel had removed the clothes of the minor girl and was caught doing obscene acts with her. When the victim's family reached there, Shakeel started abusing them and using casteist words. Seeing the commotion, people gathered around. Shakeel was caught and brought to the police station. On the way, he kept threatening to kill the victim. The victim's family demanded strict action against Shakeel. The police arrested Shakeel under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (BNS) along with the SC/ST Act. Shakeel was sent to jail.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The Muslim perpetrator in this case sexually assaulted a 6 year old child and then hurled casteist abuses at the family members of the child who came to rescue the victim. The caste slurs used against the victim's family reveals that the crime was motivated by religious animosity. The case is, therefore, being added two two primary categories. The first is 'attack not resulting in death' under the sub-category 'attacked for Hindu identity'. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. The second is under the primary category 'hate speech against Hindus'. The secondary category selected is violent threats and anti-Hindu slurs/mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. In this case, the Muslim perpetrator sexually abused a 6-year-old Hindu child. On the face of it, while the crime of sexually abusing a child is heinous ab initio, there would appear to be no indication that the crime was religiously motivated. It could have possibly been a crime of opportunity. However, the perpetrator used caste slurs when the family tried to rescue the child. The caste slur itself indicates that the perpetrator harboured religious animosity against the child and her family, and that would have served as one of the motivating factors to target the Hindu child. It can be argued that a caste-specific slur is aimed at her micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not her Hindu identity itself. However, as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. For that reason, this case is being added to the hate crime database under the relevant categories.