Hindu activist receives ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ threat, called ‘kafir’ for raising voice against forced religious conversions

Case ID : 72574ce | Location : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 22 March, 2023

Case ID : 72574ce

Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

22 March, 2023

Hindu activist receives ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ threat, called ‘kafir’ for raising voice against forced religious conversions

Hate speech against Hindus

Violent threats

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for supporting/being part of perceived Hindu party/org or working for Hindu community

Case Summary

In Indore, VHP leader Santosh Sharma received a death threat warning him of beheading for his work against religious conversion and love jihad. Santosh Sharma, the VHP’s provincial coordinator for religious propagation in Indore, discovered a green envelope placed on the wiper of his car in the Musakhedi area on Friday evening. Inside was a handwritten letter that called him a “kafir” and warned, “If you do not obey, your head will be separated from your body.” The letter explicitly ordered him to stop his work “against a particular community.” Sharma, who has been actively campaigning against religious conversions and love jihad cases in Indore, immediately submitted a written complaint to the police. The FIR was registered at Tilak Nagar police station a day later. He was accompanied by his colleague Sharad and driver Yogesh when the letter was found. Sharma said that the threat was clearly meant to intimidate and silence him for his work in defending the Hindu community

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of- Hate speech against Hindus. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Violent threats. Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is the most dangerous form of hate speech since it goes beyond discriminatory and prejudicial language to express the intent of causing harm to an individual or a group of people based on their religious identity and faith. There could be several different kinds of threats that are issued to Hindus based on religious animosity. An explicit threat would mean the direct threat of violence towards an individual Hindu, a group of Hindus or Hindus at large. Physical violence, death threats, threats of destruction of property belonging to Hindus and threats of genocide would mean explicit threats against Hindus for their religious identity. Implicit threats may not be a direct threat but implied through the use of symbols of actions – for example – in the Nupur Sharma case, other than explicit threats, there were also implicit threats when Islamists took to the streets to burn and beat her effigies. It implies that they want to do the same to Nupur Sharma – thereby is considered an implicit threat. Violent threats can be delivered in person, through letters, phone calls, graffiti, or increasingly through social media and other online platforms. It would be important to understand that a threat – explicit or implicit, online or offline – to an individual who happens to be a Hindu does not qualify as a religiously motivated threat. Such a threat, while vile and dangerous, could be owing to non-religious reasons and/or personal animosity. To qualify as a religiously motivated threat, it would need to exhibit an indication that the individual is being targeted for religious reasons and/or owing to his/her religious identity as a Hindu. The second category relevant here is- Attack not resulting in death. Under this, the subcategory selected is- Attacked for supporting/being part of perceived Hindu party/org or working for Hindu community. In several cases, Hindus are attacked specifically or tangentially for their association with parties or organisations perceived to be pro-Hindu and/or for working in favour of the Hindu community. One of the classic cases was the attack against a Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha (BJYM) worker Praveen Nettaru. Nettaru was attacked and hacked to death for his association with Hindu organizations and his work for the Hindu community. He was murdered by PFI, a terror organization which aimed to commit a genocide of Hindus, target Hindu leaders specifically and turn India into an Islamic Nation. In such cases, it is possible that the immediate trigger for the violence is non-religious – either according to the perpetrator or the police. However, there are surrounding circumstances from which the conclusion can be reached that the victim was attacked for his association with a Hindu organization. In a similar case, Rinku Sharma was attacked by radicals. He was a member of Bajrang Dal and regularly worked for the Hindu community. While the police cited a different non-religious trigger for the attack, it is true that he was associated to a Hindu organization and the family of Rinku Sharma specifically attributed his gruesome murder to him working for Bajrang Dal and raising Jai Shree Ram slogans. Such cases are intrinsically driven by religious hate and would therefore be documented as a hate crime under this category. This case qualifies as a hate crime because the threat directed at the Hindu victim was explicitly religious in nature and intended to instill fear and suppress activism associated with the Hindu cause. The perpetrator used the term “kafir”—a derogatory term historically used by Islamic extremists to dehumanise non-Muslims—and threatened to behead Santosh Sharma, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, for continuing his work against religious conversions and love jihad. Such threats are not isolated personal attacks but expressions of deep-rooted ideological hatred toward Hindus and those defending Hindu interests. The intimidation was clearly meant to silence the victim for his role in protecting the Hindu community from predatory religious conversion. The threat included the phrase “Sar Tan Se Juda”, a slogan that has become a violent Islamist battle cry in recent years. The chant—“Gustakh-e-Rasool ki ek hi saza, Sar Tan Se Juda, Sar Tan Se Juda”—translates to “There is only one punishment for being disrespectful to the Prophet Muhammad: beheading.” This slogan has gained notoriety as an Islamist clarion call to violence, having been invoked in numerous cases that led to the murders of at least six Hindus, including Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur and Umesh Kolhe in Amravati, following widespread Islamist mobilisation over alleged “blasphemy” against the Prophet. From Kanpur to Bengaluru, Kolkata to Hyderabad, mobs shouting this chant have taken to the streets, instigating riots and killings under the guise of defending religious sentiments. Though originally coined by a radical Muslim group in Pakistan, the “Sar Tan Se Juda” slogan has now taken root among Islamist extremists across India and beyond, symbolising a call for execution and terror against non-Muslims, particularly Hindus, accused of “blasphemy” or religious defiance. It is not a mere statement of outrage—it is a direct call to behead, weaponised to terrorise those who express dissenting or Hindu nationalist viewpoints. The slogan’s usage serves a dual purpose: to intimidate and silence individuals like Santosh Sharma, and to instil fear within the broader Hindu community, deterring others from speaking out against religious conversion, jihad, or extremism. Its repeated use reflects an attempt to enforce ideological submission through terror and to suppress freedom of expression by invoking violent religious supremacy. In this context, the threat against Santosh Sharma represents more than individual intimidation—it is part of a larger pattern of Islamist hostility toward Hindus who resist conversion and religious dominance. The use of “kafir” and “Sar Tan Se Juda” language is a direct expression of that hostility and a continuation of the violent campaign to dehumanise and silence Hindus through fear of execution. For these reasons, this case is documented as a religiously motivated hate crime, as it reflects explicit anti-Hindu animosity, violent intent, and ideological extremism.