Minor Dalit girls molested and threatened by Muslim youths studying in a Madrasa, abused with casteist slurs

Case ID : 90a07b1 | Location : India | Date of Incident : Fri, 7 February, 2025

Case ID : 90a07b1

India

7 February, 2025

Minor Dalit girls molested and threatened by Muslim youths studying in a Madrasa, abused with casteist slurs

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

Four minor Dalit girls have accused some Madrasa students of harassment and molestation. They also accused them of hurling casteist slurs at them and threatening them with life. An X handle named 'pakistan_untold' posted a video from the Republic Bharat news channel, which showed four minor Dalit girls speaking about their ordeal. Though the place where the incident took place is not mentioned in the video, the victims are heard confirming that they were students of grades 10th and grade 12th. The girls further say that they were returning from their school when a few Muslim students, who studied in a nearby Madrasa, molested them. They hurled casteist slurs at them. They openly gave rape and death threats to them, saying that if they did not make babies with them, they would kill them. When asked how many youths were involved, one of the victims stated that a group of 10 to 12 Muslim boys had collectively harassed them. "They surrounded us with their cars and motorbikes and molested us. When we attempted to flee towards our village, they pursued us in their vehicles. When we were halfway there, they noticed two or three men standing nearby, and it was only then that they fled. We reached our village and informed the locals and our families about the harassment," they recounted.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category of- Hate speech against Hindus. Under this, the sub-category selected is- 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. In this incident, the Muslim youths molested and threatened the Dalit victims while they were returning from school. Here, there is a strong suspicion that the victims were profiled based on their religious identities. The perpetrators pursued the Hindu girls and continued to harass them even as they tried to flee. In many such cases, the victims are profiled based on religious identity and then pursued. Further, the dehumanisation of Hindu women in a doctrinal and scriptural sense makes it far easier for Muslim extremists to target Hindu women. However, there is also a possibility that the woman was harassed as a crime of opportunity and no religious motive existed. Under such circumstances, this case would ideally be put under the 'undecided' category of the tracker, however, the fact that caste-based slurs were also hurled at the Hindu victims, makes it a clear case of religiously motivated hate crime. Further, one can argue here that caste-specific slurs were aimed at the victim's micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not their Hindu identity itself. However, as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. In this case, while the Madrasa students hurled caste abuses at the victims, the animosity was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus and this is why this case has been added to the tracker.