Hindu youth Kishan Bharwad brutally killed by Muslims for publishing a social media post with a video that included a picture of prophet Mohammed

Case ID : 7f64d21 | Location : Dhandhuka, Gujarat, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 24 January, 2022

Case ID : 7f64d21

Dhandhuka, Gujarat, India

24 January, 2022

Hindu youth Kishan Bharwad brutally killed by Muslims for publishing a social media post with a video that included a picture of prophet Mohammed

Attack resulting in death

Attack over Blasphemy

Case Summary

On January 25, 2022, a horrifying tragedy befell a 27-year-old Hindu man, Kishan Bharwad, when Muslim perpetrators murdered him over a social media post that they believed was against Islam. In January 2022, he shared a social media post. It was a short audiovisual file in which Jesus appeared as the ‘son of the God’, Prophet Muhammad appeared as ‘the messenger of the God’ whereas Lord Shrikrishna was shown to be ‘the God’. Within 30 minutes of sharing this video, Kishan Bharwad began to receive threat calls because he hailed his own faith and that did not sit well with Islamists. The Gujarat police arrested the two bike-borne assailants-Shabbir (25) and Imtiaz (27), who shot the Hindu youth. Apart from the two killers, Gujarat Police also arrested a cleric, Maulvi Ayyub, from Ahmedabad. Maulvi Ayyub was accused of providing weapons to Shabbir and Imtiaz and is also related to Maulana Qamar Gani. The assailants who killed Kishan were inspired by Islamic religious leaders who instigated them to carry out ‘jihadi activity’ of killing the ‘blasphemer’. When the case was still fresh, it was revealed that the Islamists were keeping an eye on the people seeking justice for Kishan. Later, they targeted and threatened them in messages and calls. There were plans to attack them as well. During the investigation, links to Pakistan were also discovered by the ATS. Kishan Bharwad’s murder case had links to a Pakistan-based organization Tahrik-E-Namus-E-Risalat. This organization was earlier known as Tahrik-E-Faroukh-E-Islam. This Islamist outfit is reportedly directly connected to a Pakistani political party Tahrik-E-Labbaik, which is known for its extremist Islamic ideology. Tahrik-E-Labbaik’s leader Khadim Rizvi is a Pakistani Islamist who promotes the fundamentalist doctrine of the Barelvi sect. The organization is allegedly involved in executing the Pakistani agenda of Jihad in Gujarat and Kishan Bharwad’s murder was seen as one such incident.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

Blasphemy essentially refers to the desecration of anything which is held sacred/holy to a group of people. However, for religious supremacist groups, the elements of ‘blasphemy’ are ever-changing, shifting, and expanding – leading to infringement on the rights of other religious groups, freedom of speech and expression, threats, physical violence, and even murder. There are instances where blasphemy is also used as a dog whistle to target Hindus owing to intrinsic animosity towards Hinduism. There are several instances where stating truths as mentioned in the non-Hindu doctrine itself has led to unmitigated violence against Hindus. There have also been instances where non-Hindus have themselves created a ‘blasphemous’ situation, like placing a Quran in a temple, to use it as an excuse to attack Hindus. Essentially, Blasphemy charges are often made up and/or are used to shut down any form of criticism of non-Hindu faiths and as a tool to target Hindus. Any physical violence over Blasphemy charges against Hindus are foundationally based on animosity for Hindus and their faith owing to religious supremacist ideologies. In this category, we would document cases where such allegations of ‘blasphemy’ led to an attack, resulting in the death of the Hindu victim/s. Such attacks would be documented as religiously motivated hate crimes under this category. In this case, it was clear that Kishan Bharwad was murdered by two Muslim perpetrators, instigated, tasked, and funded by Maulvis and religious clerics of the Islamic faith for what they believed insulted Islam. Blasphemy is often used as an excuse to target Hindus by radical Islamists. In this case, Kishan had shared a video that hailed his own faith, Hinduism, without insulting any other faith, however, that was branded Blasphemous to murder him with the involvement of religious Islamic clerics. The murder of Kishan Bharwad was clearly driven by religious animosity towards the Hindu faith and those professing the Hindu faith and therefore, it has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime.