Hindu employees targeted, removed from jobs; former employees cite workplace discrimination against Hindus and favouritism towards Muslims

Case ID : 30a9118 | Location : Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 20 August, 2025

Case ID : 30a9118

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

20 August, 2025

Hindu employees targeted, removed from jobs; former employees cite workplace discrimination against Hindus and favouritism towards Muslims

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Hindu employees working in LyondellBasell Industries' Enterprise Architecture division in Mumbai, India, were removed from their jobs during a sequence of organisational changes that began at the end of August 2025. LyondellBasell Industries is a global chemical company headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States, with its Indian operations based in Mumbai. This removal was described by former Hindu employees as a systematic dismantling of the entire team, with Hindu employees being specifically targeted and dismissed. Reports also revealed that hiring practices and workplace dynamics were more favourable towards employees of Pakistani and Indian Muslim backgrounds, and discriminatory towards Hindu workers. The process of selectively firing Hindu employees began with the abrupt removal of a senior Indian Hindu Director, who was widely regarded as a foundational pillar of the division. He was credited with driving structural strengthening of the Enterprise Architecture function and maintaining a merit-driven, inclusive working culture. His dismissal took place without any formal explanation or transition plan, creating immediate instability within the team and marking the beginning of a rapid leadership disruption. On the same day, a new leadership figure, Razi Dakhan, a Pakistani Muslim, was introduced into the organisational structure. According to employees, this transition raised immediate concern due to its timing. Dakhan’s publicly available LinkedIn and Facebook profiles contained content reflecting strong religious and national affiliations, with posts and associations aligned with Indian and Pakistani Muslim causes. Within a very short span of time, approximately ten days, every Indian Hindu professional working in the Enterprise Architecture division was removed from the organisation. The removals took place in quick succession, one by one, across levels and tenures, forming a pattern described as precise and coordinated. Former Hindu employees stated that the speed and uniformity of the exits left no scope to interpret the process as routine restructuring or performance-based action. Those affected shared one common identity: they were Indian Hindus, and by the end of this phase, former employees stated that the division no longer had Hindu employees remaining. Further concerns were raised regarding the internal leadership structure under Kayoor Gajarawala, who served in a senior supervisory role. Multiple former Hindu employees described a two-tier working environment where leadership behaviour was uneven across groups, with greater leniency and accommodation towards employees of Pakistani nationality and Indian Muslim employees, while Indian Hindu employees were treated with comparatively greater rigidity and scrutiny. This differential approach was described as creating a workplace environment where professional outcomes were influenced by identity, allowing the mass removal process to proceed without meaningful internal challenge. The background of these developments was linked to earlier hiring patterns within the organisation. A former manager, Nasir Zaidi, was described as having built a team composition heavily skewed towards Pakistani nationals and Indian Muslim professionals, while systematically bypassing equally or better-qualified Indian Hindu candidates. Although he had since left the organisation, many of the individuals hired during his tenure continued to remain embedded across the company. This continuity was presented by former employees as evidence of a deeper structural pattern, suggesting that preferential hiring practices were not isolated incidents but part of a longer-term organisational culture. Reports also indicated that such patterns had been observed earlier but were not meaningfully questioned within internal systems, allowing them to persist and evolve over time. Former Hindu employees described this as a legacy effect, where earlier decisions shaped the composition and internal balance of the division for years, eventually influencing later outcomes. The organisation’s official explanation for the restructuring was cost optimisation. However, this justification was questioned on the basis that the workforce in India represented one of the most cost-efficient segments of the company’s global operations, particularly in Enterprise Architecture roles. Former employees argued that the removal of lower-cost talent contradicted standard cost-cutting logic, which would typically prioritise higher-cost geographies. This inconsistency led to further suspicions regarding the stated rationale for the restructuring. The human impact of these actions was described as severe. Hindu employees who had recently joined the organisation, including those still within probation or recently onboarded for planned project requirements, were also terminated. Several of these individuals had been recruited specifically for upcoming work, making their removal shortly after onboarding particularly significant. Former employees stated that entire professional trajectories were disrupted suddenly, with no clarity or justification provided. Overall, Hindu employees in LyondellBasell Industries’ Mumbai Enterprise Architecture division were removed within a short timeframe following leadership changes, resulting in what former employees described as the complete absence of Hindu professionals from the team. Former employees characterised the sequence of events as a coordinated and systematic process influenced by leadership dynamics, historical hiring patterns, and internal bias structures, rather than a standard organisational restructuring exercise.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected in this case is: Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. This case is a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime, as Hindu employees were selectively targeted and removed from their jobs over a sudden sequence of organisational changes. Highly capable Hindu professionals were dismissed one by one in quick succession, showcasing a clear-cut pattern of religious hostility where individuals were terminated solely because of their faith identity. The blatant testimony of the victims themselves reinforces this selective targeting, as former employees stated that only Hindu staff members were systematically removed by the company. These sudden dismissals were entirely unrelated to poor performance or professional drawbacks, as the affected individuals had no history of poor performance or professional backlogs. While the company cited cost optimisation as the official rationale, this justification is completely contradicted by the fact that the Mumbai Enterprise Architecture division was already one of the most cost-effective segments globally, meaning the removal of lower-cost talent defied standard corporate logic. Targeting employees specifically for their Hindu identity, stripping them of their employment, and intentionally destroying their financial livelihood based entirely on religious animosity directly meets the definition of an identity-driven hate crime. The deeply religious and discriminatory nature of this targeting becomes even more significant and reinforced when analysing the systemic workplace dynamics and structural bias that preceded the purges. According to victim testimonies, a highly inequitable, two-tier working environment was actively maintained within the organisation, characterised by extreme strictness, rigidity, and heightened scrutiny directed exclusively at Hindu workers. Conversely, a highly favourable and lenient environment was extended to Muslim employees, including both Indian Muslims and Pakistani nationals. This institutionalised bias was further cemented by the abrupt removal of a senior Indian Hindu Director, who had previously maintained a merit-driven, inclusive culture, and his immediate replacement by a new leadership figure, Razi Dakhan, a Pakistani Muslim whose public profiles reflected strong religious and national alignments with Muslim causes. Combined with historical hiring patterns under previous management that systematically bypassed qualified Hindu candidates to favour Pakistani and Indian Muslim professionals, these actions demonstrate deep-seated religious animosity and a coordinated campaign of religious discrimination designed to purge Hindus from the workplace. A professional workplace is fundamentally supposed to function as a secular, objective environment that respects all employees equally and protects them from targeted discrimination. In any legitimate corporate structure, decisions regarding hiring, promotion, retention, and termination must be based strictly on merit, professional contributions, and operational requirements, rather than an individual's religious faith. When an entire demographic of Hindu employees is selectively discriminated against and systematically terminated while Muslim employees are granted preferential treatment, leniency, and structural immunity, the corporate environment is weaponised as a tool for religious persecution. Bypassing objective professional standards to execute an identity-based purge reflects explicit religious hatred toward Hindu employees, converting a corporate restructuring exercise into a clear case of a religiously driven hate crime. Because this case directly meets the established parameters of systematic targeting, identity-based persecution, and severe livelihood deprivation driven by religious animosity, it is being formally added to the hate crime database of the tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based strictly on the timeline when the victims' ordeal physically commences, rather than the subsequent date of media publication or public reporting. In the present case, available media reports do not specify the exact date on which Hindu employees began receiving termination notices or were formally removed from their positions. However, the documentation establishes that this systematic process was initiated at the end of August 2025 during sudden organisational changes, while the definitive media reports exposing the incident were published on 21 June 2026. Consequently, to ensure technical compliance within the database framework, an indicative incident date of 21 August 2025 has been selected for documentation and tracking purposes only, serving as a chronological marker for the start of the targeted changes. Furthermore, regarding the quantification of those affected, the public reports state that the entire contingent of Hindu professional staff within the division was systematically dismantled and removed, though the exact total count of the terminated Hindu employees was not explicitly specified. The reports explicitly identify and name only one individual, the senior Indian Hindu Director who served as a foundational pillar of the division. In alignment with a conservative data-logging methodology that requires verified identifiers or specific metrics, a minimum victim count of one has been recorded in the primary tracking field. This figure is utilised strictly for conservative documentation purposes and does not represent, limit, or specify the true scale of the total collective victims targeted during the division's reorganisation.