Hindu lawyer, who assisted in the arrest of Islamic extremist, attacked by Muslim men, warned against using using social media against Muslims

Case ID : 7257493 | Location : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 20 March, 2023

Case ID : 7257493

Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

20 March, 2023

Hindu lawyer, who assisted in the arrest of Islamic extremist, attacked by Muslim men, warned against using using social media against Muslims

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Case Summary

In Madhya Pradesh, a lawyer Manish Gadakar associated with Hindu Mahasabha was brutally assaulted by 3 persons, one of whom has been identified as Junaid. The trio assaulted the lawyer and warned him from using social media against Muslims. The men threatened Manish saying that he would be killed if he posted anything against Muslims on Facebook. Manish Gadkar is the one who helped the MP Police in identifying and arresting a Popular Front of India (PFI) spy in the Sadar Bazar area in January this year.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. In this case, the Hindu lawyer was attacked by radical Muslims for assisting in the arrest of a PFI spy. PFI or the Popular Front of India is a radical Islamist outfit outlawed by the Government of India for its connections with terrorist organizations and for being involved in radicalizing youth. These allegations included accusations of the group having links to international terror outfits. The Islamist organisation has been involved in various violent incidents, including rioting, attacks on law enforcement, and incitement to violence. It was revealed that PFI’s involvement was found in several cases during the investigation, such as chopping off the limb of a college professor TJ Joseph and the murder of several persons, including one of the most recent ones where a Hindu activist Praveen Nettaru in Bellare town, district Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka. Other cases include the murder of Sanjith, an RSS worker in Kerala who was killed by cadres of PFI on November 15, 2021. In Tamil Nadu, the PFI cadres killed V Ramalingam (a Hindu leader) for challenging its Dawah activities in 2019. Other cases included the murder of Nandu (Kerala, 2021), Abhimanyu (Kerala, 2018), Bibin (Kerala, 2017), Sharath (Karnataka, 2017), R Rudresh (Karnataka, 2016), Praveen Poojari (Karnataka, 2016) and Sasi Kumar (Tamil Nadu, 2016). The ban of the outfit followed the discovery of a document titled "India 2047: Towards Rule of Islam in India," which outlined a plan to establish an Islamic state in India by the year 2047. It may be recalled that OpIndia had exclusively reported on PFI “India Vision 2047”, the 8-page PFI document that spoke about teaching a lesson to the “coward Hindus” of India. The 8-page PFI document underlined the PFI goal for the years ahead. In the document named ‘India Vision 2047’, PFI has circulated internally among its cadre that they aim to completely dominate the ‘coward Hindus’ and subjugate them and this goal will be achievable even with 10% of Muslims rallying behind PFI. Despite being aware of the criminal activities the radical organisation have been engaged in leading to its ban in India, the Muslim youths, in this case, threatened the Hindu lawyer for assisting in the arrest of a PFI cadre. This indicates that the criminal's past did not matter to the Muslim perpetrators. The fact that the victim was opposing a co-religionist was enough for these radicals to assault the Hindu. As such, even though the arrest of a PFI cadre may have served as the catalyst for the attack, it is evident that Muslims are even averse to the idea of Hindus sharing their opinions against fellow Muslims, making it a clear act of religious intolerance and hatred, which is why this case has been included in the hate tracker.