Hindus threatened with death by Muslim cleric, stating "If you don't recite the Kalma, you will be killed "
India 
1 May, 2026
Case Summary
A video of radical Muslim cleric Maulana Sajid Rashidi surfaced on social media, where he made explicit and threatening remarks directed at the Hindu community. In an interview with a local channel, Rashidi stated, “Either memorise the Kalma or you will be killed,” and further added that unless fear was instilled among Hindus, they would not obey. He went on to say that only when some Hindus are killed in the name of the Kalma would fear take root among them. The statement quickly drew strong reactions from Hindu religious leaders and saints in Kashi, who described it as highly provocative and dangerous to social harmony. Swami Jitendrananda Saraswati, General Secretary of the Sant Samiti, condemned the remarks, stating that calling for violence against any religion or community was extremely irresponsible and posed a threat to unity and peace. He asserted that while Hindu society believes in the Constitution and the rule of law, repeated provocative statements cannot be ignored indefinitely. Several other Hindu seers also issued strong condemnations. Sitaram Das Maharaj of Saket Bhawan Temple criticised the statement, calling it reflective of “jihadi terrorist thinking” and questioning the government’s silence. He demanded immediate arrest under stringent legal provisions, stating that such remarks were intended to provoke unrest. Jagadguru Paramahamsa Acharya described the statement as anti-national and accused Rashidi of attempting to incite riots, urging strict legal action. Mahamandaleshwar Vishnu Das Maharaj also condemned the remarks, stating that such statements were meant to instil fear among Hindus. He asserted that Hindus would not be intimidated and raised concerns about the broader implications of such rhetoric. The Sant Samiti collectively demanded that the administration take cognisance of the matter, conduct a thorough investigation, and initiate legal action to prevent the recurrence of such inflammatory statements. The video continued to circulate widely on social media, amplifying outrage and concern among members of the Hindu community, who questioned the lack of immediate legal action despite the openly threatening nature of the statements. Notably, this was not the first instance of Rashidi making derogatory remarks targeting the Hindu community. The Hinduphobia Tracker has documented previous instances where he made offensive statements about Hindu beliefs and deities. For example, in October 2024, Rashidi claimed that while Islam honours mothers by stating that paradise lies at their feet, Hindus “rape” the very deities they worship. This earlier statement had also sparked outrage for its deeply offensive and demeaning portrayal of Hindu religious practices.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Hate Speech against Hindus. The selected subcategory is Violent Threats. Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, are 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, which 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. The inclusion under this category was warranted because the statement contained a direct and unambiguous call for violence tied explicitly to religious identity. Maulana Sajid Rashidi stated that Hindus should either recite the Kalma or face being killed, and further asserted that fear among Hindus would only arise when some of them are killed. This was not loose or rhetorical speech; it was a clear endorsement of violence as a tool to compel religious submission. The threat was explicit, the intent was coercive, and the target was defined solely by religious identity. The nature of the statement demonstrated a deliberate use of fear as an instrument of control. By conditioning survival on the recitation of a religious declaration, the message reduced faith to something that must be abandoned under threat of death. This establishes a framework where violence is not incidental but central, fear is cultivated, surrender is expected, and conversion is positioned as the only escape. Such articulation reflects a systematic approach where intimidation is deployed to erode religious identity and force compliance, rather than an isolated or spontaneous outburst. The statement also reflects an idea of religious supremacy seen in extremist thinking, where non-believers are expected to submit or face harm. By linking survival to the recitation of the Kalma, the speaker presents faith as something that must be accepted under threat, not by choice. In such a framework, conversion is not voluntary but forced through fear, with violence used as a way to control and dominate those who do not follow the religion. The collective dimension of the threat further strengthened its classification. The statement did not arise from a personal dispute or target an individual for specific conduct; it addressed Hindus as a community, making their faith the sole basis for violence. This transforms the threat into one of mass intimidation, where an entire group is placed under the shadow of harm unless it submits. The public nature of the statement, delivered in an interview and widely circulated, amplified its capacity to instil fear and normalise such coercive rhetoric. This statement also emerged in a deeply concerning context where similar patterns of coercion and violence had already manifested. Recently, on 26 April 2026, two Hindu guards were targeted and brutally attacked by a Muslim assailant for being unable to recite the Kalma. Another such example is the 2025 Hindu massacre in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, where 26 Hindu tourists were gunned down after Pakistani terrorists confirmed they were not Muslims. The Pahalgam attack had unfolded on 22nd April, 2025, at the popular Baisaran Valley. It was a typical afternoon filled with tourists enjoying the scenery until a group of Pakistani terrorists, belonging to the TRF (The Resistance Front), ambushed a group of unarmed visitors. According to survivors and eyewitnesses, the Islamic terrorists didn’t just open fire randomly; they conducted a “religious screening.” The terrorists forced them to prove their faith. They were asked to recite the Islamic Kalma, and the attackers also checked their religious identity through circumcision markers. Those identified as Hindus were executed at point-blank range while their families were forced to witness the killings. These parallel incidents underscore how such rhetoric does not remain confined to words but finds expression in real-world violence. The convergence of explicit threats and corresponding acts of brutality reinforces the pattern where religious identity becomes grounds for coercion and violence. Additionally, the pattern of past remarks attributed to Rashidi, including derogatory statements about Hindu deities, indicates a continuing trajectory of hostility directed at Hindu beliefs. This consistency removes any ambiguity about intent and shows that the present threat is part of a sustained expression of animosity. Taken together, the explicit call for violence, the systematic use of fear to induce surrender, the collective targeting of Hindus, and the alignment with real-world incidents of coercion firmly establish this case as hate speech involving violent threats. Disclaimer: 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 specify when the victim's ordeal began; therefore, the publication date has been recorded as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
