Minor Hindu Dalit girl assaulted, abused with caste based slurs by Muslim man

Case ID : 0fa9ac2 | Location : Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 16 January, 2025

Case ID : 0fa9ac2

Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

16 January, 2025

Minor Hindu Dalit girl assaulted, abused with caste based slurs by Muslim man

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In Thakurdwara in Moradabad, a 16-year-old Hindu Dalit girl was kidnapped by a Muslim man named Mohd Rashid. She was abducted in a Scorpio car while she had gone out to dispose of cow dung. Rashid assaulted her inside the moving Scorpio. Rashid recorded the act on his phone and also hurled casteist abuses at her while he committed the crime, police said. After raping the girl, he threw her on a road outside her village near a cremation ground and fled. The girl saw the name of the accused on an identity card placed on the car's dashboard and based on the details provided by her to the police, the accused was arrested and booked under sections of rape, SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act and POCSO Act, police said.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The case has been added to the database under the prime category of- Hate speech against Hindus. Within 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. In this case, the Hindu-Dalit minor was harassed and abused with casteist slurs by a Muslim man named Rashid and his accomplice. However, the religious motive and animosity towards the Hindu minor are indicated by the caste slurs that were hurled at her. 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. In this case, while Rashid hurled caste abuses at the victim, the animosity was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus. Therefore, the use of caste slurs by the perpetrator against the victim underscores the religiously motivated nature of the hate crime and justifies the inclusion of this case in the tracker.