Hindu transgender person brutally assaulted and pressured for religious conversion; perpetrators made derogatory remarks against Hinduism

Case ID : 30aacd5 | Location : Pune, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 21 September, 2026

Case ID : 30aacd5

Pune, Maharashtra, India

21 September, 2026

Hindu transgender person brutally assaulted and pressured for religious conversion; perpetrators made derogatory remarks against Hinduism

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attempting to convert/converting by denigrating Hinduism

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In Kothrud, Pune, Maharashtra, a 30-year-old Hindu transgender person was pressured to abandon Hinduism and accept another religion. The perpetrators made derogatory remarks about Hinduism, assaulted him and threatened to kill him if he did not hand over a share of his earnings. The incident took place at approximately 7 pm on 22 September 2026, when nine perpetrators entered his residence near a temple in the Rambaug Colony area of Kothrud. According to the complaint lodged at Kothrud Police Station, the perpetrators made derogatory remarks about Hinduism and pressured him to abandon his faith and accept another religion. They assaulted him with a belt and bamboo sticks and threatened to kill him if he did not hand over 50 per cent of the money he earned through alms. The perpetrators also robbed him of ₹6,70,000 in cash. Following the incident, a case was registered at Kothrud Police Station against nine transgender persons under provisions relating to robbery and criminal intimidation, as well as the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. Assistant Commissioner of Police Sujata Tanwade, Senior Police Inspector Arun Ghodke and Police Inspector Anil Mane visited the scene after receiving information about the incident. Assistant Police Inspector Harshal Kadam was assigned to investigate the case. The perpetrators resided in the Ganesh Peth area of Pune.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is: Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. The other sub-category selected here is - Attempting to convert/converting by denigrating Hinduism. In several cases, Hindus are converted or an attempt is made to convert Hindus by denigrating their faith, Hinduism. In such cases, the Hindus associate with the non-Hindu perpetrators often by choice and then, the attempt to convert them by insulting their faith, showing the faith down etc begins. An example of this would be a non-Hindu gathering where the Hindus are attending the gathering of their own free will. However, once they attend the gathering, there is an explicit attempt to convert them by abusing their faith and hailing the faith of the perpetrator. The denigration of the Hindu faith is often based on misrepresentation of the Hindu faith, its doctrine and scriptures and insult to espoused traditions if not blatant lies about Hindu beliefs and ways. Such conversions or attempts at conversions are driven by animosity towards the Hindu faith and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The other primary category selected in this case is: Hate speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is: Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. 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. This case stands as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because a Hindu transgender person was pressured to abandon Hinduism and convert to another religion. The perpetrators also made derogatory remarks against Hinduism, brutally assaulted the victim and gave death threats. Such actions transformed religious conversion from a matter of personal belief into an instrument of coercion, targeting the individual in connection with their religious identity. The first significant religious marker was the pressure exerted on the victim to abandon Hinduism and adopt another religion. This demand directly targeted their freedom to practise and retain their Hindu religious identity. It extended beyond a disagreement over personal beliefs, as it involved intimidation intended to compel a change of faith. For a Hindu, religion forms an important part of personal identity, spiritual beliefs, cultural traditions and connection with the wider Hindu community. Pressuring an individual to renounce that identity through coercion and threats undermined their ability to make a personal religious choice freely. The demand also conveyed that the victim's existing faith was not to be respected and that compliance with the accused persons' demands was expected. The pressure to convert represented a form of religious coercion directed at a person identified with Hinduism. The significance of this marker lay in the attempt to replace the victim's freely held religious affiliation with another faith through intimidation rather than voluntary conviction. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. The denigration of Hinduism was particularly significant because it occurred alongside pressure on the victim to abandon Hinduism and accept another religion. The perpetrators made derogatory remarks about Hinduism while demanding that the victim renounce their existing faith. In this context, the disparagement of Hinduism was not an isolated expression of religious disagreement, but accompanied an attempt to compel the victim to change their religious affiliation. By denigrating the faith they were simultaneously pressuring the victim to abandon, the perpetrators subjected the victim's religious identity to both verbal disparagement and coercive pressure. Such remarks are designed to demean and undermine the faith of Hindus and intend to create an inferiority complex in the minds of the victims against their own faith. This fosters an environment of hostility and disrespect towards the Hindu community and Hindu deities. The combination of these actions strengthened the religious dimension of the incident, as the victim faced intimidation in relation to both the retention of their existing faith and the demand to accept another. The derogatory remarks about Hinduism also constituted a distinct marker of religious hostility because they directly disparaged the faith associated with the victim's religious identity. Hinduism is a living religious tradition encompassing diverse beliefs, practices, deities and forms of worship. Derogatory statements directed at the religion demean the beliefs and practices of those who follow it. In this case, the remarks were significant because they targeted Hinduism itself rather than merely expressing a difference of opinion on a particular religious question. Although criticism or disagreement concerning religious beliefs does not automatically amount to hate speech, the denigration of Hinduism in conjunction with pressure to abandon the faith and accompanying violence provided grounds for examining the remarks as part of a broader pattern of religious hostility. This marker therefore concerned the disparagement of Hinduism itself, distinct from the coercive demand that the victim convert to another religion. Accordingly, this case has been documented in the Hinduphobia Tracker's Hate Crime Database as an instance of religiously motivated hostility directed against Hinduism and the religious identity of the Hindu community.