Muslim artisan attacks Hindu lodge owner, also associated with Hindu organisations, over a trivial matter

Case ID : 7f64d7a | Location : Vadodara, Gujarat, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 6 February, 2023

Case ID : 7f64d7a

Vadodara, Gujarat, India

6 February, 2023

Muslim artisan attacks Hindu lodge owner, also associated with Hindu organisations, over a trivial matter

Attack not resulting in death

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

Case Summary

In the Varachha area of Surat in Gujarat, Javed Sama, a Muslim artisan working in a factory, attacked Sanjay Chauhan, the owner of a lodge and associated with Hindu organizations, in a minor dispute. According to the victim, Javed Sama, who frequently came to eat at his lodge, started misbehaving with a lodge worker and started abusing him when he came to eat at the lodge on the day the incident took place. Sanjay Chauhan intervened and defended his workmanship. Being a regular customer, some of his money was deposited in the lodge. So Sanjay Chauhan calculated it and returned the balance of money to Javed and asked him not to come to eat in this lodge again. Enraged by this, Javed took out the leather belt he had worn and attacked Sanjay Chauhan while speaking abusively. As the workers gathered at the lodge, Javed fled the spot after threatening to kill Sanjay Chauhan. In a conversation with OpIndia, Sanjay Chauhan said that he is associated with many Hindu organizations and frequently organizes various religious programs in the area. Police, meanwhile, arrested the accused after registering a complaint in this regard.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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. In this instance, the Muslim man attacked the Hindu youth over a trivial argument but the victim himself testified that he is associated with many Hindu organizations and frequently organizes various religious programs in the area hinting that this might have been the trigger for the attack on him. An attack on volunteers and people associated with Hindu organisations is symbolically seen as an attack on the broader Hindu community and is rooted in religious bias or hatred against Hindus and for this reason, this case has been included in the tracker.