Hindu community in Bareilly subjected to public threat of forced mass conversion by Muslim man
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
19 March, 2026
Case Summary
A Muslim man named Mohammed Waseem Ansari, a resident of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh uploaded a video on his Facebook account in which he explicitly threatened that Hindus would one day be made Muslim, accompanied by other objectionable and offensive comments directed at the Hindu community. The video caused deep outrage among Hindu organisations in the area, with demands for strict action raised by multiple Hindu community leaders. Mohammed uploaded the threatening video on his personal Facebook account, in which he stated directly and explicitly that Hindus would one day be made Muslim. The video contained additional objectionable comments directed at the Hindu community. The video was subsequently shared and made viral on social media, bringing it to the attention of the wider Hindu community and Hindu organisations in the Bareilly district. The threatening nature of the video, combined with the history of communal tension in Mauza Majhauwa Gangapur village, where stone pelting had occurred between the two communities two to three years prior during a Tazia procession over the playing of a DJ, amplified the sense of threat and alarm felt by the local Hindu community upon viewing the video. Yuva Hindu Jagran Manch district president Himanshu Patel raised a demand for action through social media. Rashtriya Bajrang Dal district president Vivek Gangwar also demanded strict action against Ansari. Bhojipura in-charge inspector Rajeev Kumar Singh confirmed that the video originated from another country, had been made viral by Waseem Ansari, and that action would be taken after an investigation. The investigation was ongoing as of the available sources.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Hate speech against Hindus". The sub-category for 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 case qualified as an instance of hate speech on the basis that Mohammed Waseem Ansari deliberately recorded and uploaded a video on his personal Facebook account explicitly threatening that Hindus would one day be made Muslim, and subsequently made the video viral on social media, amplifying the reach and impact of the threat across the wider Hindu community. The explicit statement that Hindus would one day be made Muslim, delivered assertively on a public social media platform and made viral, constitutes a direct and public threat of forced religious conversion directed at the Hindu community as a whole. Forced conversion is not merely a religious concern but a fundamental violation of the right of every individual to practice and maintain their faith freely and without coercion. By publicly threatening that Hindus would be made Muslim, Ansari communicated to the Hindu community that their religious identity was under threat and that their continued practice of Hinduism was not something he recognised as a permanent or protected reality. The deliberate choice to make this threat on a public platform, where it could be viewed and shared by the widest possible audience, reflected a conscious intent to maximise the psychological impact of the threat on the Hindu community. The explicit threat of forced conversion meets the threshold of a direct call for the religious elimination of the Hindu community. In the context of a village with an established history of communal tension, where stone pelting had occurred between Hindu and Muslim communities two to three years prior, the delivery of an explicit public threat of forced conversion carried a particularly serious and alarming communal dimension. The threat was not made in a vacuum but in a communally charged environment where the Hindu community had already experienced direct communal violence, making Ansari's public threat a deeply intimidating act directed at a community already sensitised to communal hostility. Given that this case met the parameters of hate speech directed at the Hindu community, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when a crime occurred, or a victim's ordeal began, rather than when the media reported it. In this case, the exact date on which Mohammed Waseem Ansari recorded and uploaded the threatening video on his Facebook account is not confirmed in the sources. The article was published on March 20, 2026. Therefore, March 20, 2026, has been chosen as the indicative incident date as it represents the earliest confirmed and documented date referenced in the sources. The video may have been recorded and uploaded prior to this date, given that it had already been made viral and brought to the attention of Hindu organisations and police by the time of publication. This was recorded for documentation purposes only.
Case Status
Complaint not filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
