Minor Hindu girls molested by Muslim shopkeepers, Dalit youth who tried to rescue them abused with identity based slurs and assaulted

Case ID : 0be370e | Location : Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 25 October, 2024

Case ID : 0be370e

Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

25 October, 2024

Minor Hindu girls molested by Muslim shopkeepers, Dalit youth who tried to rescue them abused with identity based slurs and assaulted

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In Nakur police station area of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a molestation case involving minor Hindu schoolgirls sparked protests. On October 26, five men, including Amjad, the son of shop owner Bablu Qureshi, dragged two girls into a shop, assaulted them, and threatened them with a knife when they resisted. A Dalit youth, Rajkumar Valmiki, attempted to intervene but was beaten and insulted with casteist slurs. Villagers eventually intervened, forcing the perpetrators to flee, leaving behind a motorcycle. The father of the 16-year-old victim filed a complaint, stating that she was returning from coaching with her four minor friends at 5:35 pm on the day of the crime. Five people were seated in Bablu Qureshi’s shuttering shop, including Amjad. The culprits pulled two of the five girls inside the shop by grabbing their hands and hair. They thrashed the duo and said, “I have been telling you for so many days to give your mobile number, but you are not understanding.” One of them even held a knife to the neck of the complainant’s daughter. They made obscene gestures to the girls and threatened, “No one will be able to save you today.” The scared girls started to shout and their three friends, who were standing outside the store, requested the passersby for assistance. A young Dalit man, Rajkumar, was walking past the location when he heard the desperate pleas. He asked the offenders to leave the girls. However, they attacked him with casteist slurs and said, “Saale, bh**gi (sweeper) run away from here.” They even began to beat him with iron rods and sticks. After the complaint, police arrested Amjad and started searching for the other suspects. Relevant charges under the POCSO Act, SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita were filed.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

Distinct elements in this particular case demonstrate that the crime was committed while harbouring a bias against the Hindu faith. As per case details, there are two prime categories under which this case has been placed in the tracker. The first is- Attack not resulting in death and within this, the sub-category selected is- Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. The second category relevant here is- Hate speech against Hindus. Under this, the sub-category 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. Here, the Dalit youth was attacked solely for his attempt to protect the girls from harm, highlighting how his intervention to prevent an injustice made him a target of violence. His actions were motivated by attempts to protect the vulnerable girls, yet he became the victim of physical assault and verbal abuse, including casteist slurs, as a direct consequence of opposing the perpetrators. It can be argued here that a caste-specific slur is aimed at his micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not his 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. In this case, while Islamists hurled caste abuses at the victim, the animosity was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus. While the immediate trigger of the violence could be the victim's support for the Dalit girls as mentioned in reports, the fact that caste slurs were hurled at the victim by the perpetrator makes it an even more of an overt act of religious hatred directed towards the victim.