Hindu woman sexually assaulted, Muslim accused threatened to turn all Hindu women into prostitutes

Case ID : 0b6748b | Location : Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 5 July, 2024

Case ID : 0b6748b

Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India

5 July, 2024

Hindu woman sexually assaulted, Muslim accused threatened to turn all Hindu women into prostitutes

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Violent threats

Case Summary

In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was sexually assaulted by a Muslim man named Alam, also known as Amanullah. When local residents gathered to rescue the woman and confronted the accused, he began hurling derogatory remarks about Hindu women and threatened to turn them into prostitutes. According to media reports, the incident occurred on 6th July 2024, in the CB Ganj area of Bareilly. The accused, Alam, lured the Hindu woman to a room under the pretext of offering her rental accommodation. He suddenly shut the door and sexually assaulted her, tearing her clothes, although she resisted. He also physically assaulted the woman. When she screamed for help, local people rushed to the scene, surrounded the perpetrator, and beat him. Afterwards, Alam made further derogatory statements about Hindu women. He boasted that he forced them into prostitution and delivered them to Muslims. He also threatened to rape all Hindu women, stating publicly, “Sab Hinduon ki ma chu*unga. Unse dhanda karwaunga,” which means, “I will f*ck the mothers of all Hindus. I will turn them into prostitutes.” Alam proclaimed this in front of the crowd and boasted by calling himself a "Pathan." He then made indecent remarks against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Following this, the police were alarmed about the situation. Subsequently, the police arrested Alam and registered an FIR against him on charges of rape, insult, indecency, and intimidation. Inspector Rajbali Singh confirmed the arrest to the media, noting that video evidence had been received and further charges would be pursued during the investigation. Even several people shared videos of the incident on X (formerly Twitter), demanding strict action in the case.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is- 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. Another primary category selected is- Hate speech against Hindus. Within this, the subcategory selected is- 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. Another subcategory selected in this case is- Violent Threats. 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. This incident is a clear example of a hate crime against Hindu women. The Muslim perpetrator targeted a Hindu woman specifically because of her religious identity and subjected her to sexual assault. This deliberate choice to attack a Hindu woman shows religious animosity, as the violence is motivated by hatred towards her faith rather than any personal reason. When she resisted, the perpetrator physically assaulted her, intensifying the expression of religious hatred through violence directed at a member of the Hindu community. Such actions are rooted in animosity towards the victim due to her Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. When local Hindus confronted him, he immediately made derogatory remarks about Hindu women, calling them ''prostitutes". He then threatened to rape all Hindu women and force them into prostitution. These statements reveal deep-seated religious animosity, as he sought not only to harm one individual but to humiliate and degrade women of the Hindu community. His use of demeaning language and threats targeted all Hindu women purely because of their faith, demonstrating communal hatred rooted in religious animosity. This makes the religiously motivated nature of the crime very evident. This reveals a pattern of religious profiling, objectification, and sexualisation of Hindu women. The Muslim perpetrator’s hatred extends beyond the single victim, aiming to terrorise the entire Hindu female community. By publicly proclaiming himself a "Pathan" and Muslim, he invokes his religious and ethnic identity to assert superiority. This invocation of Islamic supremacy as justification for his threats and exploitation shows that the crime is explicitly motivated by religious animosity, aimed at subjugating Hindu women due to their faith. Such behaviour fits the definition of a religiously motivated hate crime, where sexual violence and threats are driven by hostility against a particular religious group, in this case, Hindus. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database.