Several Hindu women selectively targeted for sexual harassment by Muslim man in Dharwad, Karnataka

Case ID : 30a7a14 | Location : Dharwad, Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 29 March, 2026

Case ID : 30a7a14

Dharwad, Karnataka, India

29 March, 2026

Several Hindu women selectively targeted for sexual harassment by Muslim man in Dharwad, Karnataka

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Dharwad's Maratha Colony, several Hindu women were selectively targeted for sexual harassment by a Muslim man named Mohammad Sabir, a gym trainer. According to media reports, the accused Sabir worked as a trainer at the 'Fitness First' gym. He repeatedly behaved inappropriately with female members, particularly targeting Hindu women. Hindu victims stated that under the pretext of providing training, he engaged in unwanted physical contact, including 'bad touch,' and subjected them to inappropriate and uncomfortable behaviour, causing mental distress. He constantly sexually harassed them. He also loitered near women’s restrooms and changing areas. Complaints indicated that he intentionally frequented these spaces while Hindu women were inside, making obscene gestures and creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. One of the victims, Shruti Bellakki, publicly expressed her distress, stating that such behaviour made women feel unsafe and reluctant to visit the gym. As news of the harassment spread, Bajrang Dal activists gathered at the gym, accusing the management of failing to take adequate action despite prior warnings. The protesters forced the facility’s closure, locked its premises, and demanded immediate action against the accused. They insisted that Mohammad Sabir be brought to the spot and that strict legal action be initiated. Police from the Upanagar station rushed to the scene as tensions escalated. Officials pacified the protesters and began collecting preliminary information. Authorities stated that a First Information Report would be registered once formal complaints were submitted by the victims, and appropriate legal action would follow. The incident sparked widespread concern in Dharwad, raising serious questions about women’s safety in public and private spaces.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is 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. This case stands as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because the Muslim perpetrator sexually harassed and selectively targeted only Hindu women, making the religious motivation of the crime extremely clear. Mohammad Sabir did not harass women at random; he zeroed in on those identifiable by their Hindu names, turning a gym into a hunting ground for faith-based predation. This deliberate selection exposes a religious bias, where the assault weaponises religion to inflict maximum pain on the Hindu victims and the entire Hindu community. Hindu women like Shruti Bellakki endured not just violation, but a calculated strike at their identity, fuelling outrage that echoes through Dharwad's streets. When a perpetrator selectively targets women of a particular faith, in this case Hindus, it showcases not just a random occurrence of women being targeted or coincidentally Hindu, but a pattern in which the perpetrator religiously profiles and targets women from the Hindu community to sexually harass and humiliate them. All this stems from religious animosity. Sabir scanned the gym for Hindu members, exploiting training sessions to grope and intimidate them specifically, ignoring others. This profiling reveals a predator's playbook rooted in religious prejudice, where Hindu women became symbols to degrade, shattering their sense of safety in everyday spaces like fitness centres. In such instances, sexual harassment served not just for sexual gratification, but to assert religious dominance and humiliate the victim for their Hindu faith, making it a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. The unwanted touches and lewd behaviour carried a deeper malice, designed to strip Hindu women of dignity and remind them of their 'otherness' in their own community spaces. Perpetrators like Sabir thrive on this power imbalance, using physical violence as a tool to enforce religious superiority, leaving scars that linger far beyond the gym and embedding fear into the women's daily lives. The perpetrator constantly harassed selectively Hindu women, loitered around women's restrooms, particularly when Hindu women were inside, and made derogatory gestures at them; all this showcased deep-seated religious animosity where the victims were selectively religiously profiled and targeted for their Hindu identity. He lurked by changing areas, timing his presence to coincide with Hindu women, flashing obscene signals that turned private moments into terror. This stalking pattern demonstrated targeted hatred, profiling based on faith to amplify vulnerability and ensure the humiliation felt personal and inescapable. Religiously motivated sexual harassment or assault incidents targeting Hindu women due to their religious identity showcase the deep-seated religious animosity of the perpetrator and his malicious intent to humiliate Hindu women for their faith. By and large, when a community's women face humiliation and targeting for sexual violence, it brings shame to the entire community, and this was done to make the entire Hindu community feel outraged and hurt. Female members sexually harassed by a Muslim perpetrator endure collective trauma, as attacks on women symbolise assaults on community honour and cultural pride. Such acts of targeted sexual violence amount to a clear case of religiously motivated hate crime. Given these elements, this case meets every criterion for a religiously motivated hate crime and has been added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded the victim count as '1' in this case. Even though multiple Hindu victims were targeted, the total number of victims had not been specified. Only one victim, Shruti Bellakki, had been named. Therefore, we kept the victim count as one. This referred to a conservative estimate, as the total number of victims was higher. The Hinduphobia Tracker recorded the date of an incident based on when the crime occurred, rather than when it was reported by the media. In this case, media reports had not stated the exact date when the crime occurred. Hence, the date when it was first reported by the media, 30 March 2026, was recorded as the indicative incident date. This was recorded for documentation purposes only.