Sanatan Dharma denigrated, gau mata insulted by Muslim man in viral WhatsApp messages
Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India 
23 May, 2026
Case Summary
A sacred Hindu figure, Gau Mata, was targeted with abusive and derogatory remarks by Abdul Bakar, alias Abu Bukar. He was a Muslim gold-polishing worker from West Bengal, employed in Sarafa Bazar, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. He sent objectionable voice messages over WhatsApp, threatening to slaughter and eat the cow. He also made abusive remarks against the Sanatan religion and Hindu deities. The audio recordings went viral. The Hindu community of Jabalpur erupted in outrage. As per the details, Deepak Sahu, a resident of Premnagar, Jabalpur, had given Abdul Bakar an anklet for gold polishing. When the work was not completed properly and was returned, Abdul Bakar sent multiple abusive voice messages to Deepak Sahu over WhatsApp. In the recordings, he stated, "We will slaughter and eat it" in reference to the cow [revered in Hinduism as a sacred maternal figure representing divine motherhood and purity], alongside abusive remarks against Hindu deities and Sanatan Dharma. He also issued death threats against Deepak Sahu in the same voice messages. Deepak Sahu filed a complaint at Kotwali police station, submitting three audio files as evidence. As soon as Hindu organisations received information about the incident, a chaotic situation arose at Kotwali police station. Members of Narayani Sena, including Sitaram Sen and Piyush Agrawal, staged a protest at the station, demanding strict action. Thousands of Hindu community members gathered at Kotwali and Hanuman Tal in protest. CSP Kotwali Ritesh Kumar Shiv confirmed that a case had been registered on the basis of Deepak Sahu's complaint and that Abdul Bakar had been taken into custody. The three audio files were added to the investigation archive for thorough examination, after which further relevant sections were to be added and legal action taken. A local Sarafa trader highlighted that Abdul Bakar was not a local resident but had come from West Bengal to work as an artisan in Jabalpur's Sarafa Bazar, and that such individuals were being employed and given livelihoods in the Hindu-dominated trading area while openly challenging the Sanatan religion.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Hate speech against Hindus". The sub-category for this case is "Violent threats". Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is 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 – thereby 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. Another 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. Abdul Bakar's voice messages were not sent in a moment of uncontrolled anger over a professional dispute. They were a deliberate and sustained communication in which he chose to direct his hostility not merely at Deepak Sahu personally but at the sacred objects of Deepak Sahu's Hindu faith. A dispute over improperly completed gold polishing work does not produce objectionable remarks against Gau Mata, Sanatan Dharma, and Hindu deities unless the perpetrator's hostility toward the victim's Hindu religious identity was already present and the professional dispute merely provided the occasion for its expression. The transition from a workplace disagreement to abusive remarks against Hindu sacred figures reflects a pre-existing religious animus that the dispute did not create but simply released. The statement "We will slaughter and eat it" directed at Gau Mata is not merely offensive language. In Hindu devotional tradition, Gau Mata is not a dietary category or an economic resource. She is a sacred maternal figure whose protection is understood as a religious and moral obligation by devout Hindus across the subcontinent. The explicit statement of intent to slaughter and consume the cow, directed at a Hindu man in the context of abusive remarks against his faith, was a deliberate assault on one of the most sacred and emotionally resonant figures in Hindu religious life. It was chosen specifically because it would inflict maximum religious harm on a Hindu recipient. The death threats issued alongside the religious abuse establish that the communication was designed to produce fear as well as religious offence. Abdul Bakar did not merely insult Deepak Sahu's faith. He combined the religious abuse with explicit threats to his life, creating a communication in which the denigration of Hindu sacred figures and the physical intimidation of a Hindu individual were delivered as a single coordinated message. The combination reflects an intent to harm the victim simultaneously in his religious identity and his physical safety. The viral spread of the audio recordings and the scale of the Hindu community's response, with thousands gathering at Kotwali and Hanuman Tal in protest, reflects the severity of the religious harm inflicted by the content of the messages. The Hindu community of Jabalpur did not respond to a private workplace dispute. They responded to the public denigration of Gau Mata, Sanatan Dharma, and Hindu deities by a Muslim worker employed within their trading community, who had used the intimacy of that employment relationship to deliver anti-Hindu abuse directly to a Hindu community member. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, Abdul Bakar's conduct reflected more than workplace aggression or personal animosity. By directing abusive and derogatory remarks against Gau Mata, Sanatan Dharma, and Hindu deities in voice messages sent to a Hindu man, explicitly threatening to slaughter the sacred cow, and combining this religious abuse with death threats, his actions demonstrated a deliberate and directed hostility toward Hindu religious identity expressed through the most provocative and sacrilegious language available. Deepak Sahu was targeted specifically because he was Hindu, and the sacred figures of his faith were targeted because their desecration through abusive language would inflict the deepest possible religious harm. This reflects an underlying hostility toward Hindu religious 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.
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
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