Hindu student pressured to remove his tilak during college exams by Muslim teachers in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Case ID : 30a852e | Location : Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 9 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a852e

Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

9 May, 2026

Hindu student pressured to remove his tilak during college exams by Muslim teachers in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Restriction/ban on Hindu practices

Restriction on expression of Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Dehradun's Baba Farid Institute of Technology (BFIT), a Hindu student, Mohit Kumar, was pressured to remove his tilak for writing his examinations by Muslim faculty members of the college. This incident came to light when the victim reached out to the Hindu Raksha Dal, a Hindu organisation, for help. A Hindu activist from the Hindu Raksha Dal interviewed the victim and recorded his testimony in a video. The video was then shared on social media, and it gained massive traction. In the video, the victim stated that Mohammad Aslam Siddiqui, a Deputy Director at BFIT Group of Institutions in Dehradun, ordered him to remove his tilak. He also said that Siddiqui did not like it when the victim wore a tilak and kalava and often asked him not to wear them in college. The victim also said that he was stopped during an examination by another Muslim teacher identified as Ahmed Masood, who told him to erase the tilak from his forehead to write the exam. He also said that this happened despite the fact that he had paid the entire academic fees for his course. The victim further revealed in his testimony that the accused, Mohammad Aslam Siddiqui, had been rude and cruel in this manner towards students and their parents, while ignoring all their grievances. Local Hindu groups, including the Hindu Raksha Dal, issued warnings to Mohammad Aslam Siddiqui. They demanded that the victim not be troubled further, or the BFIT institute would face consequences for harassing the Hindu student.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is- Restriction/Ban on Hindu practices. The subcategory selected is- Restriction on expression of Hindu identity. An example of the state-affected prejudicial and targeted orders against the Hindu community would be a government denying the right of a Hindu or a group of Hindus to hold a religious procession owing to the animosity of non-Hindu groups. Denial of the religious right of the Hindus to assuage the non-Hindu group which harbours animosity to a point where it could lead to violence against Hindus is not only a failure of law and order but is a prejudicial order against Hindus, denying them their fundamental rights to express their religious identity. An example of a hate crime against Hindus by a non-Hindu would be a non-Hindu institution forcing its Hindu employees to abandon religious symbols that a Hindu would wear as an expression of faith owing to inherent prejudice against the faith professed by the victim or a non-Hindu group of people restricting a Hindu group from constructing a place of worship simply because the demography of the area in which the temple is being built is dominated by non-Hindus. Such actions are driven by religious animosity and/or prejudice against Hindus and their faith and would therefore be categorized as a hate crime. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because a Hindu student was compelled by Muslim faculty members to remove his tilak purely on the basis that he was a Hindu wearing a visible religious symbol. When he resisted, the faculty enforced the removal under threat of exclusion from the examination. Both these aspects, the compulsion to remove the tilak and the deliberate, humiliating enforcement in an exam setting, make this incident a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime. The victim was not treated as an equal exam-taker; he was singled out because of his religious identity and then subjected to an act designed to degrade that identity in a public, institutional space. The Muslim faculty members imposed a restriction first and foremost on the Hindu victim, one that was directly tied to a core Hindu religious practice: wearing the tilak. They enforced this restriction under the threat that he would not be allowed to sit for the examination if he refused to remove it. The act targeted the victim’s religious identity at a moment of extreme vulnerability, on the day of a crucial examination, when he had invested years of preparation and paid the full academic fees. The nature of the compulsion, the targeting of his tilak, and the public humiliation involved clearly demonstrated that religious hostility and contempt for Hindu identity were central to the harm inflicted on the victim. This was not a neutral administrative formality; it was a targeted, degrading act rooted in religious prejudice. The tilak is not a mere mark or fashion accessory. In the Hindu tradition, it is a sacred symbol applied after rituals, worn as a mark of devotion, and removed only under specific, ritually sanctioned circumstances. By forcing a Hindu student to remove his tilak, the faculty turned a sacred symbol into something forbidden and unwelcome. This is symbolically violent. It communicated not only a rejection of the tilak itself, but also a message that the victim’s Hindu identity and religious expression could be overruled and mocked in a supposedly secular college. The act was not just about a religious mark; it was about marking the victim’s faith as inferior and unwelcome in that space. For the Hindu student, wearing the tilak was not an optional stylistic choice but an integral part of his religious observance and identity. The faculty chose to impose a condition that directly interfered with this practice, despite the victim having complied with all academic requirements. The perpetrators did this at a critical moment, during the examination itself, when the victim had no realistic alternative: he could either surrender his religious identity or be excluded from the exam. This revealed that the perpetrators deliberately targeted a Hindu religious practice and enforced its removal in a setting where refusal would result in exclusion, demonstrating an intent to suppress Hindu religious expression in a secular-claimed space. The power imbalance was absolute: the faculty held the authority to decide whether he could even write the exam, and they used that power to punish him for his faith. The victim also revealed that this was not the first time he had been targeted for wearing a tilak. Mohammad Aslam Siddiqui, the Deputy Director of the college, had repeatedly singled him out for wearing both a tilak and a kalava, often instructing him not to attend college with these symbols. The kalava, a sacred protective thread (also known as mauli or rakhi) tied around the wrist after Hindu rituals, symbolises divine protection, warding off evil, and commitment to spiritual vows, carrying profound significance in Hindu tradition, especially during festivals like Raksha Bandhan or after pujas, as a visible marker of faith and blessings from deities. This pattern of repeated targeting showcases the perpetrator's deep-seated religious intolerance towards public Hindu expression, where Hindu students are effectively being told they must suppress their religious identity to participate in college life and write examinations. This amounts to coercion and forced religious restriction, systematically aimed at punishing victims for their religious identity, violating the victim's religious autonomy and fundamental rights to express their faith, and thus qualifies as a hate crime. Here, it is important to mention that in 2022, a massive controversy had erupted in Karnataka, which took a national form, after Muslim women had insisted that they should be allowed to wear Burqas and Hijabs in their schools and classrooms. That time, the argument that was given by several politicians, social commentators, Hindu activists and even the Judiciary was that schools have the right to enforce uniform rules, since wearing uniforms brings harmony and equality in the classroom, and therefore, schools not allowing girls to wear hijab in the classroom is not religious discrimination, but merely an enforcement of widely accepted uniform norms. The pseudo-seculars and leftist groups may argue that a similar line of reasoning should be applied in this case. However, it becomes important to mention here that, firstly, while college examinations may mandate simple attire to prevent malpractices, they also accommodate religious customs. Candidates wearing articles of faith, such as tilaks or kalavas, are permitted, and only disruptive items are typically restricted. Moreover, the tilak and kalava are such minute religious symbols that they do not hamper any examination rules or serve as overt symbols causing religious differentiation in college. The tilak, a sacred mark traditionally applied on the forehead, neither violates standard exam dress codes nor poses any security risk. Even such small, minor symbols of Hinduism, when they are pressured to be removed, showcase the college's deep-seated animosity towards public Hindu expression. Examination authorities may regulate outer clothing for uniformity and security, but personal, visible religious symbols like the tilak and kalava should not be subject to such control. Forcing their removal without any valid or written justification is a clear violation of religious freedom. It sends a deeply exclusionary message, singling out Hindu customs for unnecessary scrutiny and erasure. More broadly, this reflects a disturbing pattern where expressions of Hindu identity are marginalised, even in supposedly neutral, secular spaces like private colleges. In this case, the enforcement of rules appears selective and rooted in a disregard for Hindu sentiments rather than any genuine procedural necessity. The staff targeted a visible Hindu religious symbol, the tilak, of a Hindu student, while no similar restrictions were applied to other forms of visible religious identity. This clearly demonstrates that the victim was targeted for his faith identity, making it an anti-Hindu hate crime. Given that this case meets the parameters of a hate crime, it is added to the hate crime database of the tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records dates of incidents based on when the crime occurs rather than when it is reported on mainstream media or goes viral on social media. In this case, however, the only date available is when it went viral on social media, which is 10 May 2026. Henceforth, this date is selected as the indicative incident date, for documentation purposes only.