Case Summary

In the Nandosi village of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, Hindu religious sentiments were insulted after a Muslim youth named Mohammad Wahid circulated an objectionable video showing cow slaughter while threatening the Hindu community with death. The Hinduphobia Tracker accessed the FIR, which stated that the accused, Mohammad Wahid, son of Navi Ahmad and resident of Nandosi village, uploaded a highly provocative video on Facebook showing the slaughter of a cow and making inflammatory remarks against Hindus. In the video, a man was seen slaughtering cows while threatening the Hindu community, making statements about slaughtering Hindus like cows. This video was widely viewed on platforms such as X and Facebook, causing outrage and deep distress among members of the Hindu community. The act was seen as a deliberate attempt to provoke communal tension and insult Hindu religious sentiments. Subsequently, based on the complaint, an FIR was registered by the police against Wahid under appropriate legal provisions. The complaint noted that the video and photo were intentionally posted to incite anger and religious discord. Acting on the direction of senior officials, Inspector Surendra Pal Singh led the investigation, and the police swiftly arrested Wahid. The mobile phone used to post the video was recovered from his possession and sealed as evidence. After his arrest, Wahid was seen publicly apologising for his actions.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Hate speech against Hindus. Within it, the sub-category selected: - 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. The second sub-category selected here 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. This case has been added to the tracker because of the violent and blasphemous imagery used by a Muslim youth to openly mock, provoke, and threaten the Hindu community through the portrayal of cow slaughter. The act of slaughtering a cow on video while issuing threats against the Hindu community was not random or isolated; it was a deliberate attempt to insult, intimidate, and incite religious hatred. In Hinduism, the cow is venerated as a symbol of motherhood, purity, and selfless giving, believed to embody divine grace and compassion. She represents life-sustaining virtue and is worshipped as a sacred being worthy of protection and reverence. Thus, to slaughter a cow and film the act with the express intent of ridiculing Hindus and threatening to cut Hindus like cows represents a direct assault on the Hindu faith and identity. There is ample historical documentation of how cow slaughter has been used to humiliate Hindus, desecrate temples, and even force religious conversion by making Hindus consume beef. Therefore, when the man in the video made statements about slaughtering Hindus like cows, the message was clear: the fate of the cow was meant to parallel the fate of Hindus, especially those who revere it. In this case, the cow becomes a surrogate for the Hindu community, and the act of slaughtering it becomes the threat of communal violence. It functions as a symbolic call to violence and a portrayal of religious animosity and hatred. By mocking and desecrating the sacred cow (Gaumata) and threatening the Hindu community, the accused revealed his deep-seated hatred and disdain for Hindu beliefs and culture. The accused’s actions, therefore, were not merely provocative but were a manifestation of ideological animosity towards Hinduism. His mockery of the cow must be understood as an extension of the same hate-driven mindset that seeks to demean Hindu symbols and provoke communal unrest. It is pertinent to note that Muslim extremists harbour specific animosity towards Hindus and their faith and also view India as a Hindu collectivity. The very basis of the partition of India was that the Muslims believed that Islam was a nation unto itself, which could not survive with a Hindu collectivity like India. Thus, when Islamists weaponise religious imagery and threaten violence against the Hindu community through that imagery, it is not mere provocation but a promotion of the idea that sees Hindus and the Indian nation as outsiders or enemies. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the accused posted this video. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the FIR was filed - 8 November 2025.