Bajrang Dal workers attacked by Muslim mob in Saharanpur while returning from Hanuman Chalisa recitation

Case ID : 90a086b | Location : Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 19 June, 2023

Case ID : 90a086b

Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

19 June, 2023

Bajrang Dal workers attacked by Muslim mob in Saharanpur while returning from Hanuman Chalisa recitation

Attack not resulting in death

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

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Mande Bans village, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Bajrang Dal workers were attacked by a group of Muslims while returning home after reciting the Hanuman Chalisa at the village temple. The assailants used bricks, stones, sticks, and even opened fire, injuring Sagar and two of his colleagues, Yuvraj Yadav and Ritik Yadav. The attack took place after the religious recital on their way back from the temple. Those identified as attackers include Salim, Alijan, Sajid, Azam, Ayan, Aashiq, Sameer, Ahsan, Shoaib, Shavez, Guddu, and Fayyaz. According to Sagar, the group was already prepared for the assault. Azam was firing shots, forcing the Bajrang Dal workers to run for their lives. Hrithik Yadav, one of the injured, is physically handicapped. Sagar lodged a police complaint, stating that the attackers were attempting to intimidate them into leaving the Bajrang Dal. The members demanded strict legal action against the accused. A case was registered under IPC sections 147, 148, 149, and 307. However, the Muslim side also filed a case, claiming they were the victims, and police registered complaints against both parties. Saharanpur Senior Superintendent of Police Vipin Tada stated that the incident stemmed from a dispute over playing a DJ track on a tractor and said there was no prima facie evidence of stone pelting. Sagar also mentioned that tensions had been building before this incident. Salim and Amir had assaulted him a month earlier, and Fayyaz and his associates attacked Yuvraj Yadav two days before the latest clash. Sagar blamed the village head, Tariq, as the root cause of these repeated conflicts, stating that Tariq had previously intervened to settle disputes at the police station under the assurance that no further violence would occur.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Attack not resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category 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. The other sub-category relevant here is: - Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. This case involves Bajrang Dal members who were returning home after participating in a religious activity (Hanuman Chalisa recital) when they were attacked by a group of Muslims. The victims explicitly stated that the attackers wanted to kill them so that they would quit Bajrang Dal. This statement points to the attack being motivated by hostility toward their association with a Hindu organisation, rather than a purely personal dispute. This targeted violence against members of a pro-Hindu organisation, regardless of the alleged immediate trigger, constitutes a hate crime. Even if the organisational link is ignored, the fact that the victims were Bajrang Dal members returning from a Hanuman Chalisa recital makes their Hindu religious identity highly visible. The attackers allegedly came prepared with weapons, suggesting premeditation, and the choice of target appears connected to their being Hindus engaged in a religious activity. This falls into the pattern of attacks where Hindus are targeted without provocation other than their faith or religious practices, similar to past cases where visible Hindu identifiers triggered violence. In this interpretation, the assault is motivated by religious hostility towards Hindus in general, making it a hate crime under this category as well. In the Mande Bans case, the police stated that the reason for the fight between the Bajrang Dal members and the Muslim group was a dispute over playing DJ music, and that, prima facie, there was no evidence of stone pelting. The police, in many such cases, where the motive behind the crime is obvious but not explicitly mentioned, deny that the crime committed was in any way motivated by a religious bias or say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to the crime. Several factors are generally at play here. Many a time, the police downplay incidents of low-level communal crime because it is their jurisdiction that comes under question. The police also often say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to a crime when there was one because they wish to ensure that, owing to the crime already committed, there is no further flare-up in the area. Likewise, the Left media and the leftist elite are also inclined to emphasise this "no communal angle" trope, especially wherever the victim of the crime is a Hindu. However, only a police statement or a media report, for instance, cannot be enough to determine whether there is a communal angle present in the crime that has been committed. In fact, to determine whether the crime is communal in nature or not, we need to give emphasis to the ground realities. For example, in the case of Rinku Sharma, the Bajrang Dal activist who was mercilessly stabbed in his house in front of his family members in Delhi’s Mangolpuri area in the year 2021, the leftist media and the leftist ecosystem had tried to peddle that there was no communal angle to the crime. Even the police denied that the crime was communal in nature. However, Opindia spoke to several people who are on the ground with the family of Rinku Sharma, and we were told that the communal tension in the area is palpable. The family of Rinku Sharma has said that the Muslims of the area held a grudge against Rinku ever since he celebrated the Ram Mandir verdict Like the case of Rinku Sharma, those cases where even if the police have denied a communal angle or the leftist media have gone on an overdrive to peddle the ‘no communal angle’ trope, the ground reality, like the victim’s family or relative's testimonies, make it clear that there was an obvious religious bias that led to the crime, will be documented in this tracker. In this case, Bajrang Dal member Sagar clearly narrated that the attackers wanted to kill them so that they would leave Bajrang Dal, and there is a documented history of prior assaults on the same Hindu victims by the same accused. The attackers came prepared with weapons and targeted them immediately after a Hanuman Chalisa recital—indicating that their Hindu identity and organisational affiliation played a role. Despite the police’s DJ dispute explanation, these ground realities point strongly towards a communal motive. Hence, this case has also been included in the hate tracker.