Hindu mother-daughter duo attacked, threatened with communal slurs by Muslim men over wearing a tilak in West Bengal

Case ID : 30a7478 | Location : South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 16 March, 2026

Case ID : 30a7478

South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India

16 March, 2026

Hindu mother-daughter duo attacked, threatened with communal slurs by Muslim men over wearing a tilak in West Bengal

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Violent threats

Case Summary

In the Betberia market under the Canning Sub-Division of South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a Hindu woman named Nomita Biswas and her daughter Kollomi Biswas were brutally assaulted for wearing a tilak by Muslim men. The victims were also subjected to obscene remarks, violent threats and communal slurs by the Muslim perpetrators. According to media reports, the mother and daughter went to the market to buy vegetables. Then they got into an argument with a Muslim vegetable seller there. The Muslim vegetable seller initially refused to sell the vegetables after seeing the tilak on Nomita's forehead. Then, when questions were raised about the matter by Nomita and her daughter, the situation became heated. At one point during the argument, the Muslim vendor's son came to the spot and slapped Nomita's daughter. Following this, both Hindu victims were subjected to physical assault and harassment. After the incident, the two Hindu victims released a video message highlighting their experience, which quickly went viral on social media. In the viral video, the victims stated that they went to an ashram and, while returning, stopped to buy vegetables. The Muslim vegetable seller refused to serve them upon seeing the tilak on Nomita's forehead. Kollomi explained that her mother regularly wears a tilak and performs naam jaap using a sacred bead necklace. After the Muslim shopkeeper's refusal, Nomita questioned him directly. When a verbal altercation ensued, the shopkeeper's son assaulted both mother and daughter, using vulgar language towards them. The young Hindu girl also stated that the accused pushed her and her mother around before brutally attacking them, causing injuries. Both victims further shared that local Muslims who witnessed the incident came forward, supported the vegetable seller and his son, and threatened them, saying, "Your Hindutva and Sanatan Dharma will not work here. You are Sanatan Dharma people. We will strip you naked and tear you into pieces." Finally, in the video, the victims pleaded for justice and protection for themselves and other Hindus. Regarding this incident, the police said that the matter was being investigated and necessary action would be taken based on the victims' complaint. The local police station said that legal action would be taken after investigating all aspects of the incident.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being 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. 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. The other 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 represents a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because a Hindu mother and daughter duo were brutally attacked, threatened, and subjected to communal slurs and vulgar remarks by Muslim men, specifically over the fact that the Hindu mother wore a tilak, a traditional vermilion mark applied on the forehead. The tilak served as an unmistakable visible marker of their Hindu faith and devotion, instantly transforming what should have been a routine market interaction into targeted violence against their religious identity and cultural expression. This direct assault on individuals openly displaying Hindu religious symbols constitutes a religiously motivated hate attack, where the perpetrators' actions stemmed from deep bias against the Hindu faith, its rituals, and the community's right to practise them publicly without fear of retribution. The fact that the Hindu mother and daughter approached the Muslim vegetable seller simply to purchase vegetables, only for him to deny them service upon seeing the tilak on the mother's forehead, reveals profound and deep-seated religious animosity towards the Hindu community and their open, everyday expression of faith through such sacred markers. Denying anyone a basic necessity like food, which is essential for daily survival and devoid of any commercial justification, based solely on their religious identity or its visible markers, demonstrates extreme religious bigotry by the perpetrator, ruthlessly escalating a simple commercial transaction into overt religious discrimination and humiliation. This refusal was not impulsive but a deliberate assertion of dominance, punishing the victims for their visible Hindu piety in a public place where equal access should prevail. When the victims questioned this discriminatory refusal, the Muslim seller's son responded with brutal physical assault on both mother and daughter alongside vulgar remarks, confirming beyond doubt that the attack occurred explicitly because the victims wore a tilak, a sacred Hindu religious marker symbolising devotion, spiritual protection, and connection to the divine. Such targeted violence against Hindus for displaying religious symbols evidences the perpetrators' entrenched and unyielding religious animosity towards the Hindu community, their distinct identity, and authentic faith expressions, marking this as a textbook anti-Hindu attack driven by religious bigotry rather than personal grievance. These assaults deliberately foster widespread fear, psychological trauma, and religious tensions within the local and broader Hindu community, fulfilling every criterion of a hate crime through systematic intimidation, dehumanisation, and coercion based purely on religious affiliation. Following the initial assault, other local Muslims who witnessed the incident quickly rallied to support the Muslim vegetable seller and his son, actively hurling communal slurs and threats directly at the terrified Hindu victims in a show of collective solidarity. Their mocking declaration, "Your Hindutva and Sanatan Dharma won't work here," constitutes explicit anti-Hindu slurring by deriding and trivialising core tenets of Hindu identity and philosophy at their most foundational level. "Sanatan Dharma" embodies the eternal, timeless Hindu way of life encompassing dharma (righteous duty), karma (action and consequence), and moksha (spiritual liberation), representing Hinduism's unbroken spiritual continuum across millennia. "Hindutva" signifies an organised Hindu cultural, political, and civilisational movement that asserts the right of Hindus to preserve their heritage and practise their faith freely in their ancestral homeland. By sneering at these concepts with sarcasm and contempt, the perpetrators dismissed the victims' profound religious worldview as irrelevant and invasive, framing Hinduism itself as an alien, failing ideology incompatible with the local space. This calculated mockery not only belittles sacred Hindu principles but actively seeks to erode the victims' dignity and cultural confidence, amplifying communal hatred by positioning Hindu faith as something to be ridiculed and expelled. The threat, "You are Sanatan Dharma people. We will strip you naked and tear you into pieces", escalates the confrontation into overt violent intimidation, promising grotesque physical violation, sexual humiliation through public stripping, and savage dismemberment explicitly targeting the victims for their Hindu identity. This dehumanising language strips away all pretence of civility, invoking imagery of barbaric rape-like degradation combined with lethal mutilation to instil paralysing terror, far beyond mere anger. Such violent threats showcase the perpetrators' visceral anti-Hindu hate by weaponising extreme brutality against markers of Hindu devotion like the tilak, revealing a mindset that views Hindus not as equals but as existential enemies deserving annihilation. The collective nature of these pronouncements, endorsed by onlookers, extends fear beyond the immediate victims to the broader Hindu community, signalling that any visible assertion of faith, tilak, Sanatan Dharma practice, or Hindutva pride invites mob retribution. This creates pervasive communal dread, discouraging religious expression and fostering a chilling environment where Hindus self-censor to avoid becoming the next targets of promised atrocities. Overall, this attack exemplifies a religiously motivated hate crime rooted in communal animosity towards the victims' Hindu identity, manifesting as discrimination, physical violence, slurs mocking Hindu philosophy, and threats of extreme brutality. The progression from refusing service over a tilak to assault, to community-backed threats, reveals systematic religious bigotry aimed at humiliating and intimidating Hindus for practising their faith visibly. By targeting sacred religious markers and core beliefs like Sanatan Dharma, the perpetrators sought to instil communal fear, erode Hindu confidence, and assert dominance, hallmarks of anti-Hindu hate crimes. Since this case meets several parameters of a religiously motivated offence, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when crimes occur, rather than when media reports them. In this case, the media reports have not specified the exact date of the incident. Therefore, 17 March 2026, the date when the first report was published, has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes. In this case, even though other Muslim locals present at the scene supported the Muslim perpetrators and threatened the Hindu victims with communal slurs, the total number of these Muslim local supporters has not been specified in available reports. While the Muslim vegetable seller and his son stand identified as the primary perpetrators, the additional local supporters remain unnamed and unquantified. Consequently, the perpetrator count has been conservatively recorded as '2' for documentation purposes only.