Hindu man tied to a pole and brutally beaten to death by Muslims in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30a9ea7 | Location : Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 10 August, 2026

Case ID : 30a9ea7

Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, India

10 August, 2026

Hindu man tied to a pole and brutally beaten to death by Muslims in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh

Undecided cases

Attacked/Killed for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, 38-year-old Hindu labourer Ram Sanehi Shilpkar, who belonged to the Scheduled Caste community, was killed by a Muslim man, Akbar Ali and his Muslim associates. The perpetrators accused the victim of attempting to commit theft, tied him to an electric pole and brutally beat him with a stick, resulting in his death. According to media reports, the incident took place in Thakurapur village under the Gasdi police station area. Ram Sanehi was a resident of Vishunpur Kalan village and worked as a labourer to support himself and his family. His wife had left him, and he lived with his brothers. On 11 August 2026, he left home to go to Komdi market. Near Thakurapur, the accused stopped him on suspicion of attempted theft and assaulted him. A 33-second video of the assault later went viral on social media, showing Ram Sanehi tied to a pole while a man standing nearby repeatedly beat him with a stick. Ram Sanehi could be heard pleading with the perpetrators to spare him and let him go, saying, “Brother, don’t hit me, let me go.” Despite his repeated cries for mercy, the attackers continued beating him. The perpetrators claimed that Ram Sanehi had gone to the area with the intention of committing theft. During questioning, the accused told police that they suspected he was attempting to steal from their roadside food stall. They caught him, tied him to a pole and brutally beat him with a stick, resulting in his death. Police examined the circumstances of the incident and were to determine the facts based on the post-mortem report, video footage and other evidence. Ram Sanehi was taken to a local health centre in a serious condition, where doctors declared him dead. According to his brother, Phool Kumar, someone had posted the assault video on Facebook. After the family learnt about it, they downloaded the video and handed it over to the police as evidence. The video subsequently became an important part of the investigation and helped establish the circumstances surrounding the assault. In his complaint, a Muslim man named Phool Kumar alias Guddu, a resident of Thakurapur, his father Akbar Ali, Magghe Nau and their associates as the persons who had assaulted Ram Sanehi. Based on the viral video and the family’s complaint, police registered a case against three named accused and one other person for murder and invoked relevant provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Police later arrested the main accused, Akbar Ali, son of Yunus and a resident of Thakurapur, along with a 14-year-old child in conflict with the law. On 13 August 2026, acting on information from an informant, a police team led by Inspector Rajkumar Pandey cordoned off the area near Baruni Nala in Gasdi and apprehended the two. Action against the minor was initiated under the Juvenile Justice Act. Both were sent to court after the necessary legal proceedings. Police recovered the stick used in the assault at the accused persons’ instance. The police team involved in the operation comprised Inspector Rajkumar Pandey, Sub-Inspector Gulab Shahi and constables Dharmendra Kumar, Vipin Kumar and Amit Kumar Yadav. At the time of writing this report, further legal action was being taken under the relevant provisions of law.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case was added to the Undecided Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker because the available evidence did not provide sufficient grounds to establish a religious motive behind the crime. In this case, a Hindu man was brutally beaten to death after Muslim perpetrators accused him of attempting to commit theft. The religious identities of the victim and the perpetrators raised concerns about the possibility of religious hostility having played a role in the crime. The Hinduphobia Tracker had previously documented several cases in which Hindus were killed by Muslim perpetrators because of hostility towards their Hindu identity. These included cases in which Hindus were specifically targeted for being Hindu, including during communal attacks. The Tracker had also documented cases in which Hindus were killed following seemingly minor, non-religious disputes, where Muslim perpetrators responded disproportionately and used the dispute as a pretext to target the Hindu victim because of his religious identity. In such cases, an ostensibly non-religious dispute became a vehicle for religiously motivated violence against a Hindu. Against this broader backdrop, the killing of a Hindu man by Muslim perpetrators after he was accused of attempting to commit theft raised concerns about whether the alleged theft was merely a pretext for violence rooted in religious hostility. However, the available evidence did not establish such a motive. It was equally plausible that the incident was a crime of opportunity and that the perpetrators genuinely believed that Ram Sanehi was attempting to commit theft. There was no indication that his Hindu identity was invoked during the assault, that religious or caste-based slurs were directed at him, or that the perpetrators expressed hostility towards Hinduism. Nor was there any indication that other Hindus were targeted or that the assault formed part of mob violence directed at the victim because of his faith. In the absence of such indicators, it remained plausible that the perpetrators had acted on the belief that Ram Sanehi was attempting to steal from them and that the fatal assault arose from that perceived offence. At this stage, the available evidence did not establish beyond reasonable doubt that religious hostility had motivated the killing. Therefore, classifying the incident as a religiously motivated hate crime would not have been sufficiently supported by the immediate circumstances. The Hinduphobia Tracker adds cases to its Hate Crime Database only after analysing the available evidence and identifying significant or clear indicators of religious motivation. As the immediate circumstances of this case did not establish a religious motive, it did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the Hate Crime Database and was therefore retained in the Undecided Database. If further evidence emerges indicating that the killing was rooted in religious hostility, the case will be reassessed and may subsequently be moved to the Hinduphobia Tracker's Hate Crime Database. Disclaimer: In this case, the total number of perpetrators was not specified in the available reports. However, three perpetrators, Akbar Ali, Guddu and Magghe Nau, were specifically identified. An additional perpetrator was identified in the complaint filed by Phool Kumar, the brother of the deceased victim, Ram Sanehi Shilpkar. Therefore, the perpetrator count was recorded as four for documentation purposes only.