Hindu family's house at Muslim majority area targeted and defaced with anti-Hindu slogans

Case ID : 529b2fd | Location : Banda, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 5 May, 2023

Case ID : 529b2fd

Banda, Uttar Pradesh, India

5 May, 2023

Hindu family's house at Muslim majority area targeted and defaced with anti-Hindu slogans

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for crossing 'Muslim area'

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Kotwali Nagar area of Banda district, Uttar Pradesh, the walls of a Hindu family's house were defaced with anti-Hindu slogans like "Hindu Bharat Chhodo" (Hindus leave India). This entire incident occurred in a Muslim-majority area of Banda. According to reports, this created tensions among the local community. Banda Police registered a case on May 6, 2023 and initiated an investigation to identify the individuals responsible for the act. The incident occurred in a Muslim-majority area falling under the Mardan Naka police station. The slogans were discovered on the walls of Ramlal Prajapati's house and the adjacent toilet. Upon notification, local residents and police gathered, and the offensive slogans were removed. Hindu activists arrived at the scene, demanding strict action and police protection for Hindus in the locality. In response, the Superintendent of Police and other police officers reviewed the situation. Paramilitary forces conducted a foot march in the area to maintain peace. The police also registered an FIR against unidentified persons and launched a probe into the incident.

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. Another primary category selected is- Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is- Attacked for crossing 'Muslim area'. One of the reasons that Hindus get attacked unprovoked specifically by Islamists is for crossing ‘Muslim areas’. Essentially, Muslim mobs often attack Hindus crossing or present in certain areas which have a majority Muslim population. It has often been cited as one of the reasons to blame Hindus for attacks against themselves, signalling that Hindus displaying religious symbols, taking our religious processions or crossing any area which is dominated by Muslim residents is a provocation in and of itself. These areas are mostly ghettoized areas where mobs mobilize quickly to attack Hindus for a variety of reasons like playing music during a religious procession, crossing a mosque, wearing a tilak or any other religious symbol in a Muslim-dominated area, praying at a local temple in that area etc. There have been cases where the few local Hindus of that area have been attacked on their way to the Temple for prayers as well, simply because the area is considered a Muslim-dominated area. Several times, it is entirely possible that the immediate trigger for the violence against Hindus was non-religious in nature, however, the violence became religiously motivated in nature because the area was Muslim dominated and the residents on the whole harboured animosity towards Hindus, evidenced from the actions of the mob, the slogans, and the nature of the attack. Such crimes are motivated by the religious identity of the victims and are therefore classified as hate crimes under this category. The other subcategory selected 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 unequivocally constitutes an anti-Hindu hate crime, as perpetrators defaced a Hindu man's house with inflammatory slogans explicitly targeting his religious identity and community, turning his family home into a public billboard of anti-Hindu bigotry and intimidation. The deliberate vandalism—scrawling hateful graffiti visible to all neighbours—served as a psychological assault, instilling profound fear, humiliation, and a constant sense of siege in the victims, who now confronted daily reminders of their exclusion simply for being Hindu. Far from mindless mischief, this calculated degradation of sacred personal space mirrored patterns of anti-Hindu vandalism, weaponising public visibility to erode community safety and dignity. This incident also embodied anti-Hindu hate speech through calls for expelling the Hindu majority from India, marking a grave anti-Hindu hate crime. The fact that this occurred in a Muslim-majority area reflects a broader pattern where Hindus often face targeting because Muslims consider these areas their exclusive domain. This behaviour exposes a disturbing sense of Islamic supremacy, where Muslims feel entitled to police the movement and presence of Hindus, dominating public spaces and making Hindus feel unwelcome and marginalised. In this particular case, the defacing of the Hindu family's house by unidentified miscreants in the Muslim majority area stands as a stark manifestation of a supremacist ideology, showcasing deep-seated religious prejudice and intolerance towards Hindus, making it a clear example of an anti-Hindu hate crime. Another key point is that the explicitly anti-Hindu slogans irrefutably proved the family was singled out for their religious identity alone, marking this as blatant hate speech with no ambiguity. These vicious messages did not merely harass one household; they issued a terrifying warning to every Hindu in the neighbourhood, threatening expulsion from India. This broad intimidation tactic transformed a personal violation into a communal assault, cementing it as deliberate anti-Hindu hate speech and a grave hate crime designed to terrorise an entire faith group. In this case, even though the identity of the perpetrators remains unknown, the act itself demonstrates that it stemmed from hatred and animosity towards Hinduism and the Hindu community. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Reports confirm one Hindu family was targeted in this case, but the precise number of family members remains unspecified. Recent Indian census data establishes an average household size of approximately 4.8 persons. For standardised precision in documentation, this analysis adopts a firm estimate of 5 victims per household. Thus, the Hinduphobia Tracker records an indicative victim count of 5 individuals.