Hindu deities mocked in obscene Instagram video by Ambedkarite man Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
23 August, 2026
Case Summary
In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, an Ambedkarite youth identified as Awaran Kumar was arrested after posting an Instagram video in which he was seen dancing in inappropriate attire while insulting Lord Hanuman, a revered Hindu deity. The accused uploaded an objectionable video on Instagram, which carried the caption, “Hanuman ji ki biwi aa gyi India me” (Hanuman ji’s wife has arrived in India). The depiction and caption were offensive to Hindu religious sentiments. According to Devarniya police, Kumar, a resident of Girdharpur, had uploaded the video from his Instagram account and circulated it online. After the matter came to the police’s attention, Devarniya police registered a case against him and arrested him. He was subsequently sent to jail.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category: Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected 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 incident qualified as a hate-motivated act against Hindus because the content specifically targeted a revered figure of Hindu faith and used that religious identity as the basis of ridicule. The offensive nature of the act did not arise merely from the accused’s attire or dancing; rather, the conduct was framed around the depiction of Lord Hanuman and a sexually suggestive reference to his supposed wife. By attaching such a reference to a deity who is deeply revered in Hindu religious tradition, the content turned a religious figure into the subject of deliberate mockery and vulgarisation. The caption, “Hanuman ji ki biwi aa gyi India me”, further reinforced this religious targeting by explicitly invoking Hanuman in a manner intended to ridicule or demean the deity rather than making a generic obscene or insulting statement. The religious identity of the target was therefore central to the offensive act. Had the same conduct involved an ordinary individual without reference to a religious figure, it would have constituted a different form of misconduct. Here, however, the person chosen for the portrayal was a specifically identifiable Hindu deity, and the humour or provocation was derived from placing that deity in a deliberately inappropriate and disrespectful context. This made Hindu religious belief itself the object of the ridicule. The incident was also significant because religiously offensive portrayals affect a wider religious community even when no individual Hindu is physically attacked. A revered deity functions as an important religious representation for devotees, and deliberately degrading that representation can be experienced as an attack on the dignity of the faith and its adherents. The police action following the circulation of the content, including the registration of a case on the ground that Hindu religious sentiments had been hurt, further demonstrated that the offence was understood in explicitly religious terms. Taken together, the selection of Lord Hanuman as the subject, the inappropriate portrayal, and the sexually suggestive reference to the deity established that the offensive character of the content was intrinsically connected to Hindu religion. The incident therefore represented hate speech against Hindus through the deliberate mockery and derogatory treatment of a central Hindu religious figure, rather than merely constituting generic obscenity or offensive social-media content. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the accused posted the video. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media, 24 August 2026.
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
