Hindu sentiments outraged; Christian youths from Goa make abusive remarks against Hindu deities on social media
Goa, India 
20 April, 2026
Case Summary
In Goa, Hindu religious sentiments were outraged as Christian youths on social media denigrated and abused Hindu deities. This incident unfolded against a backdrop of YouTuber and Hindu activist Gautam Khattar, along with his brother Madhav, facing targeting by Christian organisations and politicians for remarks about the 16th-century Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier, who demanded the Goa Inquisition. This inquisition led to thousands of Hindus being forcibly converted, tortured, and killed by missionaries during Portuguese rule. Khattar delivered these remarks at a Hindu cultural event in South Goa's Vasco on 18 April 2026, prompting Christian organisations to file complaints and police to register cases against him. As previously reported by the Hinduphobia Tracker, the controversy centred on Khattar labelling "Saint" Francis Xavier a "terrorist" during the Sanatan Dharm Raksha Samiti's Bhagwan Parshuram Jayanti celebrations, portraying him as a "barbaric, cruel ruler" devoted to converting Hindus to Christianity, while also making "derogatory" comments about Xavier's remains in a casket revered as "sacred" relics. Following the incident, several Christians, outraged by Khattar's remarks, resorted to posting derogatory content against Hindu gods on the internet. In response, local Hindu activists lodged a complaint with the Goa Police against two identified individuals. On 23 April 2026, a group of Hindu activists arrived at the Mapusa Police Station and submitted a complaint against several Christian individuals for making derogatory comments about Hindu deities and hurting religious sentiments. The complaint named two individuals identified as Babit Fernandes and Elesban Mark Mascarenhas. The complaint attached screenshots of the offensive comments made by the accused on social media against Hindu gods. “We (Name), residing at Mapusa, wish to bring to your notice that certain individuals posted highly objectionable, abusive, and derogatory comments on a social media platform (Facebook) on or around 21 April 2026. As per the attached screenshots, the following individuals made offensive remarks: Babit Fernandes and Elesban Mark Mascarenhas,” the complaint read. “The said comments contained insulting and offensive references to revered figures of the Hindu religion, including Lord Ram, Sita, and Parshuram. Such remarks were deeply hurtful to the religious sentiments of the Hindu community and had the potential to disturb communal harmony and public order,” the complaint added. The complainants, Jayesh Thali, Uday, Omkar Naik, Vinod, Yashwant and one other contended that the blasphemous comments by the Christian duo “attracted offences under the following provisions of the Indian Penal Code: Section 295A: Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings. Section 153A: Promoting enmity between different groups. Section 504: Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace. Section 505(2): Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred, or ill-will between communities.” Hindu activists urged the police to identify and verify the named individuals, take appropriate legal action against them, and ensure the removal of such offensive content from the platform.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Hate Speech against Hindus. Within this, 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. This case constitutes a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime as the Christian perpetrators denigrated and abused revered Hindu deities on social media following the controversy where Hindu activist Gautam Khattar faced legal action for comments about St Francis Xavier, the radical Christian missionary who forcibly converted numerous Hindus to Christianity and demanded the Goa Inquisition. That inquisition resulted in several thousand Hindus being forcibly converted, with many killed and tortured for refusing conversion. These details establish the religiously motivated nature of the intent behind the social media abuse targeting Hindu deities. The statements made by Gautam Khattar aligned with historical records. St Francis Xavier proselytised Hindus to Christianity through force, denigrated Hindu gods, deities, temples, and idols by calling them black, devilish, ugly, and dirty, and demanded the Goa Inquisition. That process led to the forcible conversion, murder, and torture of several thousand Hindus during Portuguese rule in Goa. Khattar presented factually correct information yet faced targeting by Christian organisations and politicians, with police in Goa registering cases against him. This response revealed deep-seated religious animosity towards Hindu activists who sought to inform the Hindu community about their historical sufferings and oppose radical Christian personalities. The abuses and derogatory remarks against Lord Ram, Goddess Sita, and Lord Parshuram by the Christian perpetrators further demonstrated their deep-seated religious animosity towards the Hindu community. In Hindu tradition, Lord Ram represents dharma, righteousness, and ideal kingship as the seventh avatar of Vishnu, revered in the epic Ramayana as the epitome of moral conduct and devotion. Goddess Sita, his consort, symbolises purity, loyalty, and feminine strength, enduring trials as the embodiment of pativrata ideals central to Hindu marital and spiritual values. Lord Parshuram, the sixth avatar of Vishnu, stands as a fierce warrior-sage and protector of dharma, known for wielding his axe against corruption and adharma, particularly venerated in warrior castes and during festivals like Parshuram Jayanti. Therefore, denigrating these sacred figures in derogatory terms amounted to a direct attack on the Hindu faith itself, wounding the core religious sentiments of millions by profaning icons that define Hindu identity, ethics, and cosmology. The precise timing of this abuse, immediately following Gautam Khattar's remarks, exposed the perpetrators' calculated aim to punish him and the broader Hindu community through retaliatory sacrilege against their deities, thereby deterring others from voicing truths about Hindu persecution under Portuguese Christian rule in Goa. Christian perpetrators employed this tactic deliberately to assert religious dominance over Hindus, signalling that any challenge to their historical narratives, such as Xavier's role in forced conversions and the Inquisition, would provoke desecration of Hindu gods as reprisal, instilling fear and ensuring silence through communal intimidation and enforcing a hierarchy where Hindu voices remain suppressed while Christian sensitivities dictate public discourse. The fact that such abusive remarks against Hindu deities appeared on public social media platforms indicated a deliberate intent to reach a wide audience, amplify communal discord, and inflict maximum psychological harm on Hindu sentiments across Goa and beyond. By choosing openly accessible digital spaces with viral potential, the perpetrators ensured widespread visibility among Hindu communities, maximising outrage and distress while evading immediate accountability, thereby confirming a clear case of religiously motivated hate crime designed for broad intimidation. Overall, this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime. Therefore, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: In this case, even though multiple perpetrators were involved in abusing Hindu deities, only two of them, Babit Fernandes and Elesban Mark Mascarenhas, were specifically named in the complaint. Henceforth, the perpetrator count has been recorded as two. This is a conservative estimate recorded for documentation purposes only.
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
