Hindu woman's caste identity targeted with vulgar abuse by Muslim political leader in West Bengal

Case ID : 30a89c6 | Location : Uttar Dinajpur district, West Bengal, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 21 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a89c6

Uttar Dinajpur district, West Bengal, India

21 May, 2026

Hindu woman's caste identity targeted with vulgar abuse by Muslim political leader in West Bengal

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

A Hindu housewife from Hemtabad, Uttar Dinajpur district, West Bengal, was subjected to extreme social and caste-based humiliation by Mojibur Rahman, vice president of the Trinamool Congress [TMC] in Hemtabad Block, who abused her in extremely vulgar language, invoking her caste. The woman, refusing to be silenced, filed a written complaint at Hemtabad police station, leading to the registration of a case against Mojibur Rahman under the SC/ST [Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities] Act and his subsequent arrest. As per details, on 22 May 2026, Mojibur Rahman subjected the local Hindu housewife to extreme verbal abuse using casteist slurs, exploiting his position as a powerful TMC leader to humiliate her socially and on caste grounds. The victimised woman filed a written complaint at Hemtabad police station. Police registered a case against Mojibur Rahman under the SC/ST Act without delay. The case was registered alongside a separate fraud case under IPC sections 420 and 406 related to a job recruitment racket in which Mojibur had extorted lakhs of rupees from unemployed youth by promising government jobs in the irrigation department. On 23 May 2026, police produced Mojibur Rahman before the Raiganj Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, which ordered him to be remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. Hemtabad police station IC Sujit Lama confirmed the arrest based on the two registered complaints. Following the arrest, additional complaints of financial embezzlement and oppression began arriving at the police station from individuals who had previously been too afraid of the influential leader to speak out. The IC noted that ordinary people had not been able to speak publicly out of fear of the leader's intimidation and were now coming forward.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Hate speech against Hindus". The sub-category for this case 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. The caste identity targeted by the abuse is inseparable from the victim's Hindu religious identity. Caste in the Hindu social framework is not merely a social category. It carries devotional, ritual, and community significance that is deeply embedded in Hindu religious and social life. To abuse a Hindu woman using casteist slurs is to attack the specific dimension of her identity that connects her to her community, her ancestry, and her place within the Hindu social and religious order. The invocation of caste as an instrument of humiliation by a Muslim political leader reflects not merely personal animosity but a deliberate targeting of the Hindu woman's most socially and religiously vulnerable identity marker. It can be argued here that a caste-specific slur is aimed at her micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not her Hindu identity itself. However, as far as the Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro-identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. In this case, while Mojibur Rahman hurled caste abuses at the victim, the animosity was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus. By subjecting a Hindu housewife to extreme verbal abuse using casteist slurs in vulgar language, exploiting his position as a powerful TMC leader to humiliate her on the basis of her Hindu caste identity, and operating within a broader pattern of intimidation that had silenced the Hindu community from filing complaints against him, his actions demonstrated a deliberate and sustained hostility toward the Hindu community under his political influence. The Hindu housewife was targeted specifically because her caste identity made her a convenient and vulnerable object for the expression of the anti-Hindu prejudice that Mojibur Rahman's conduct reflected throughout his tenure as a TMC leader in Hemtabad. This reflects an underlying hostility toward Hindu religious and social identity that cannot be characterised as anything other than religiously motivated. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker.