Wasim Ahmed of Maharajganj molests Dalit girl, hurls casteist slur and threatens to kill her if she tells anyone

Case ID : 04aed51 | Location : Mahrajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 19 August, 2024

Case ID : 04aed51

Mahrajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India

19 August, 2024

Wasim Ahmed of Maharajganj molests Dalit girl, hurls casteist slur and threatens to kill her if she tells anyone

Hate speech against Hindus

Violent threats

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In the Bhitauli police station area of Maharajganj, an 18-year-old Dalit girl was molested by Wasim Ahmed on her way to school on August 20, 2024. According to the complaint lodged by the girl's mother on August 23, Wasim stopped the girl, placed his hand on her waist, and touched her inappropriately. When she resisted, Wasim became angry, abused her, and threatened, "Cham!r Saal! If you tell anyone, I will kill you." The girl managed to escape and informed her family about the incident. The police registered a case against Wasim Ahmed under sections 74, 126(2), 352, and 351(2) of the Indian Penal Code (BNS), along with the SC/ST Act.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

In this case, the Muslim perpetrator sexually assaulted the Hindu girl and then, hurled casteist abuses while threatening to kill her if she said anything about the harassment. While molestation in and of itself is a crime ab initio, what proves the religious animosity driving this crime is the caste slurs hurled at the victim. This case is thereafter being added to the primary category 'hate speech against Hindus'. The secondary categories selected in this case are anti-Hindu slurs/mocking faith and violent threats. 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. Further, violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is the most dangerous form of hate speech since it goes beyond discriminatory and prejudicial language to express the intent of causing harm to an individual or a group of people based on their religious identity and faith. There could be several different kinds of threats that are issued to Hindus based on religious animosity. An explicit threat would mean the direct threat of violence towards an individual Hindu, a group of Hindus or Hindus at large. Physical violence, death threats, threats of destruction of property belonging to Hindus and threats of genocide would mean explicit threats against Hindus for their religious identity. Implicit threats may not be a direct threat but implied through the use of symbols of actions – for example – in the Nupur Sharma case, other than explicit threats, there were also implicit threats when Islamists took to the streets to burn and beat her effigies. It implies that they want to do the same to Nupur Sharma – thereby is considered an implicit threat. Violent threats can be delivered in person, through letters, phone calls, graffiti, or increasingly through social media and other online platforms. It would be important to understand that a threat – explicit or implicit, online or offline – to an individual who happens to be a Hindu does not qualify as a religiously motivated threat. Such a threat, while vile and dangerous, could be owing to non-religious reasons and/or personal animosity. To qualify as a religiously motivated threat, it would need to exhibit an indication that the individual is being targeted for religious reasons and/or owing to his/her religious identity as a Hindu. 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. Since the crime was driven by religious animosity directed at the victim's macro religious identity, as evidenced by the slurs, this case is being categorised as a hate crime.