Hindu activist gets beheading threats for exposing forced religious conversions of Hindu girls

Case ID : 242decc | Location : Una, Gujarat, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 30 March, 2023

Case ID : 242decc

Una, Gujarat, India

30 March, 2023

Hindu activist gets beheading threats for exposing forced religious conversions of Hindu girls

Hate speech against Hindus

Violent threats

Case Summary

Hindu activist Kajal Hindustani was given beheading threats by Muslims for raising concerns about the forced conversion of Hindu girls taking place in various parts of the world, the demographic change in parts of India and several other issues. Muslims raised slogans of ‘sar tan se juda’ in Gir Somnath, accusing her of giving an anti-Muslim speech during the Ram Navami procession. The Ram Navami procession (Shobhayatra) was taken out on March 30. A public meeting was held, at which political and social activist Kajal Hindustani was one of the speakers. During the meeting, she talked about forced religious conversion where Hindu girls are lured into a relationship by non-Hindu men who usually hide their religious identity and eventually force them to convert to their faith, demographic change in parts of India and several other issues. The video of her speech was shared on social media, and as a reaction, thousands of Islamists took to on roads to protest. They demanded action against Kajal while chanting slogans calling for beheading. The protest march calling for beheading took place on Friday, March 31, during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan. The police intervened to control the situation. Una police organised a peace meeting between the Hindu and the Muslim communities. However, it led to further disagreements, resulting in tension in the area. The merchants closed their shops, and the market remained closed in many parts of the city. Later, Gir Somnath’s Superintendent of Police (SP) reached the spot and called five leaders of both communities to the Circuit House. The meeting held by SP was unfruitful, as the situation deteriorated again in the evening, resulting in stone pelting by miscreants in the Kumbharwada, Koliwad, and Chandrakiran areas. They also threw soda bottles. The police again intervened to control the situation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This incident has been added to the tracker under the category- Hate speech against Hindus. Under this, the subcategory selected 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 case bears clear indicators of a religiously motivated hate crime as it involves explicit threats of beheading directed at a Hindu individual for expressing views on issues concerning the Hindu community, including forced religious conversion and demographic change. The targeting of Kajal Hindustani was not due to any personal dispute but arose directly from her speech addressing matters related to Hindu identity and experiences. The reaction to her speech demonstrates that the hostility was triggered by her articulation of concerns affecting Hindus, making her religious identity and viewpoint central to the threat. A key marker in this case is the use of the slogan “sar tan se juda,” which explicitly calls for beheading. This slogan has, in recent years, emerged as a form of violent intimidation used against individuals perceived to have spoken against Islam or practices associated with it. Its use in this instance, during organised protests, indicates not only anger but a willingness to invoke extreme violence as a response to speech. When such threats are directed at a Hindu speaker for raising issues concerning her community, it reflects an attempt to silence and deter similar expressions through fear. The scale and nature of the mobilisation further reinforce the targeted character of the incident. Large groups gathered, raised slogans calling for beheading, and demanded action against the speaker. This was not an isolated reaction by a few individuals but a coordinated public display of hostility. The subsequent escalation into tension, shutdown of markets, and incidents of stone pelting demonstrate how such threats can quickly translate into broader communal pressure, creating an environment of fear not only for the individual targeted but for the wider Hindu community. This pattern of response is not unprecedented. A similar trajectory was observed in the 2022 case of BJP ex-spokesperson Nupur Sharma. In May 2022, Nupur Sharma was one of the panellists on the Time Now show, along with Taslim Ahmed Rehmani, on the Shivlinga found at the Gyanvapi disputed structure site. During the debate, Rehmani used derogatory language against Bhagwan Shiv that irked then-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. Sharma countered her and questioned how he would react if she used the same language for Islam and the Prophet. Though it was a counterstatement, Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair saw it as the perfect opportunity to ruin Sharma’s life. He cunningly trimmed Rehmani’s remarks that came before Sharma’s counter remarks and presented them as if Sharma was insulting Prophet Mohammed. The propaganda against Sharma worked, sparking international outrage. Regardless of the fact that what Sharma said about the Prophet’s marriage to the 9-year-old Ayesha, which is mentioned in multiple Islamic hadiths, Nupur Sharma was branded as a ‘blasphemer’, with Islamic organisations openly declaring that she should be murdered. Following the witch-hunt against Sharma, there were protests and riots across the country carried out by Sar tan se juda shrieking Islamist mobs. People who supported Sharma were threatened by Islamists online and offline. FIRs were filed not only against Sharma but also against those who supported her. Another similar example is that of Sharmishta Panoli, a law student from Symbiosis Law School in Pune, who was arrested by Kolkata Police on 30th May 2025, from Haryana’s Gurugram. The arrest came after Islamists unleashed an online mob against the Hindu influencer, who issued rape and death threats, including the Islamist-favourite ‘Gustakhe Nabi ki ek saza, Sar tan se juda’ threat. The Indian Muslim social media users also began tagging the police, demanding her arrest. These episodes demonstrated how threats of extreme violence can be normalised as a means of enforcing silence. The recurrence of such slogans and threats in the present case indicates that this has evolved into a broader modus operandi, where intimidation and the threat of lethal violence are used to suppress voices within the Hindu community. The timing of the protests during the month of Ramzan and the escalation into public disorder further underscore the organised nature of the response. The fact that a speech delivered during a Hindu religious procession led to calls for beheading shows that the objection was not merely to the content of the speech but to the act of a Hindu individual publicly articulating concerns about issues affecting Hindus. This transforms the incident from a disagreement over speech into an attempt to enforce silence through intimidation rooted in religious identity. Such threats have a chilling effect that extends beyond the individual. When a Hindu speaker is threatened with beheading for expressing views on issues concerning her community, it sends a broader message that similar expressions may invite violent consequences. This creates an environment where members of the Hindu community may feel compelled to self-censor, thereby restricting their freedom of expression and participation in public discourse. Taken together, the direct calls for beheading, the organised mobilisation against a Hindu speaker, the escalation into communal tension, and the repetition of a pattern previously seen in similar cases demonstrate that the incident was not an isolated reaction but part of a broader pattern of intimidation directed at Hindus. Accordingly, this case displays clear markers of a religiously motivated hate crime and has been recorded in the Hinduphobia Tracker database.