Hindu girl harassed, her family brutally assaulted and subjected to casteist slurs by Muslim men in Haryana

Case ID : 30a7597 | Location : Palwal, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 17 March, 2026

Case ID : 30a7597

Palwal, Haryana, India

17 March, 2026

Hindu girl harassed, her family brutally assaulted and subjected to casteist slurs by Muslim men in Haryana

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In a village in Palwal district, Haryana, a Dalit Hindu girl was subjected to repeated harassment and threats by a Muslim man identified as Aijaz. The accused, along with his accomplices, also physically assaulted her entire family and abused them with casteist slurs. According to the complaint filed by the victim’s father at Utawad police station, the accused, Aijaz, had been stalking the girl for a long time. He used to follow her and engage in acts of harassment outside their house. The family had objected to his behaviour on multiple occasions but refrained from escalating the matter due to fear of the accused’s influential and dominant family. When the Hindu family initiated discussions for the girl’s marriage, Aijaz misused social media to sabotage the alliance, leading to the breakdown of the proposed match. Subsequently, on 8 March 2026, the girl was married to a man from Faridabad district. On 15 March 2026, seven days after the marriage, when relatives from her matrimonial side came to take her, Aijaz positioned himself outside the victim’s house. In the presence of her family members, he made obscene remarks directed at the girl. When the family objected, Aijaz’s associates, identified as Faraz, Jishan, Sahroon, Kaif, and Asif, arrived at the scene armed with axes, farsa, and sticks. They assaulted the family and hurled caste-based abuses. The accused also issued death threats to the victim and her family before leaving the spot. On 16 March 2026, a complaint was lodged regarding the incident. ASI Mahesh Kumar visited the spot and conducted an initial inquiry. On 18 March 2026, the police registered a case under relevant sections, including charges of assault, molestation, and provisions of the SC/ST Act.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack not resulting in death. The sub-category 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 the 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. The other subcategory selected is- Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save a 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. Another primary category selected is- Hate speech against Hindus. The selected subcategory 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 from 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. This case represented a clear instance of a targeted attack where a Hindu Dalit girl was singled out, abused, and harassed, with her identity forming the core of the hostility. At the outset, the use of caste-based slurs towards the victim's family during the incident established that the abuse was directed at their religious identity and not merely at their actions. These slurs were intended to humiliate and degrade the victim and her family, reducing her to a position of inferiority and stripping her of dignity. Many might argue that a caste-specific slur in this instance targeted her Dalit identity and not her Hindu identity as a whole. However, it was important to consider that, as far as Abrahamic religions were concerned, the micro-identities of caste, region, and language remained secondary, and it was the broader religious identity of the victim that often drove animosity. In this case, the fact that the accused hurled caste-based slurs at the victim's family and persistently harassed the Hindu girl showed that the act was driven by hostility towards the victim and her religious identity under the pretext of personal pursuit. While the immediate trigger appeared to be his continued interference in her life, the use of caste-based slurs during the harassment indicated that the conduct carried a deeper identity-based motive, thereby making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Further, the accused's conduct was not isolated but a continuous campaign fuelled by religious animosity, manifesting as a hate crime against the Hindu victim. The repeated stalking and harassment outside her home, coupled with interference in her personal life, represented a sustained attempt to dominate and control her choices purely because of her Hindu identity. Despite repeated objections, this behaviour persisted, deliberately disregarding her consent and dignity in a bid to subjugate her religiously. Moreover, the deliberate disruption of her marriage prospects exposed a calculated pattern rooted in hate crime motives. By misusing social media to sabotage alliances, the accused, driven by religious animus, ensured she remained socially isolated and vulnerable, pressuring her Hindu family and curtailing her life prospects as punitive retribution for her faith. Notably, the harassment intensified even after her marriage was finalised, underscoring the deep-seated religious animosity. The accused continued targeting her, making obscene remarks in front of relatives to punish her for resisting and progressing, transforming personal vendetta into communal degradation of her Hindu honour. This episode starkly showcases religious animosity, where the victim's family's resistance to ongoing harassment triggered a brutal escalation into collective intimidation, a classic hallmark of religiously motivated hate crimes. Multiple Muslim individuals arrived armed with weapons and assaulted the Hindu victim's family, transforming personal harassment into a violent show of force designed to instil communal fear, silence any opposition, and assert dominance over the Hindu household. Crucially, this reveals how Hindus standing up for fellow Hindus against hate crimes are themselves viciously attacked, underscoring a pattern of retaliatory violence to suppress defence of their community's dignity and rights. Taken together, these acts showed a deliberate attempt to control, intimidate, and silence a Hindu girl and her family by attacking them, their religious identity, dignity, and freedom. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports stated that the Hindu victim and her family were targeted by Muslim perpetrators; however, the total number of victims was not specified. Only one victim, the Dalit Hindu girl, was specified. Therefore, she was recorded as the victim, with the victim count recorded as one (1). This is a conservative estimate, as the total number of victims could be higher. The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when the media reported it. In this case, the report does not mention when the victim's ordeal began; therefore, the date when the complaint was lodged at the police station, 18 March 2026, has been recorded as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes.