Hindu man fatally stabbed; victim’s wife exposes harassment by Muslim neighbours

Case ID : 90a0b26 | Location : North West Delhi, Delhi, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 20 March, 2025

Case ID : 90a0b26

North West Delhi, Delhi, India

20 March, 2025

Hindu man fatally stabbed; victim’s wife exposes harassment by Muslim neighbours

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Attacked to induce migration from non-Hindu dominated area

Case Summary

A minor altercation between children over a scooter in Northwest Delhi’s Wazirpur area escalated into the brutal murder of a Hindu man by his Muslim neighbours. The violent clash left several others injured, including the victim’s son. Radhe Shyam’s family was the only Hindu household in the predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. According to reports, the conflict began with a scuffle between children from both families but quickly turned into a communal confrontation involving stone pelting and the fatal stabbing of the 65-year-old victim. Radhe Shyam had two sons, Kamal and Gautam. On the day of the incident, Kamal, the 8-year-old son, got into a minor dispute with children from Jamal’s family. The elders intervened, leading to a heated argument between the deceased’s sons, and Jamal and his son, Irshad. Though the police initially intervened to defuse the situation, tensions flared up again later. According to Kamala Devi, the victim’s wife, around 1 PM, individuals from the opposing side pelted stones at their home. Fearing for their safety, she locked herself, her daughter-in-law, and her grandson inside a room. She said that her younger son, Gautam, was attacked with a knife, and when her husband and elder son attempted to intervene, they were stabbed as well. “Hiding inside, we could only hear them attacking Gautam. My husband, Radhe Shyam, and my son Kamal rushed to help, but they were stabbed too,” she said. She further said that her husband could have been saved if help had arrived sooner. “Irshad killed my husband when he was only trying to stop the fight. No one came to help us. Even auto drivers refused to take him to the hospital. I had to walk nearly two kilometers before a two-wheeler rider agreed to help.” After the stabbing, Radhe Shyam was rushed to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries. His body was sent for postmortem at BJRM Hospital. Kamal, Gautam, Jamal, and Irshad also sustained injuries and were hospitalised. The victim’s family stated that the attack was premeditated and linked to a past altercation. Kamala Devi revealed that a year ago, Jamal and his sons had misbehaved with her daughter-in-law, leading to a dispute that was settled with police intervention. She said that since then, their Muslim neighbours had been harassing them and pressuring them to leave the area. “The entire Muslim neighborhood threatens us. They keep asking why we are still living here and tell us to vacate our home,” she stated. However, the accused’s family denied allegations of stone pelting and claimed that the Hindu family deliberately threw stones at their own house to implicate them. Meanwhile, the police have dismissed any communal angle to the case, labeling it a personal dispute.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of- Attack resulting in death. Within this, the first sub-category selected 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, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. The second sub-category selected is- Attacked to induce migration from non-Hindu dominated area. There have been cases where the Hindus living in an area, often with a majority dwelling belonging to non-Hindus or those harboring animosity towards the Hindu faith, the Hindu residents experience threats and violence. The violence is employed with the aim of making the Hindus leave the area and relocate, so the area could be turned into an exclusive ghetto for adherents of the non-Hindu faith or those who harbor animosity towards the Hindu faith. In several cases, the aim of exodus is explicit. However, in several cases, the demand for exodus of Hindu residents is not explicit, however, violence by non-Hindu residents leaves the Hindu residents no option but to leave the area, thereby, turning the area into an exclusive ghetto of non-Hindu residents. In such cases, there are instances of violence against the Hindu residents explicitly. For example, in the Hauz Qazi case of 2019, the Muslim residents claimed that mob violence against the Hindu residents had been triggered by a parking dispute. However, the violence did turn religious with a temple being desecrated, and was directed specifically against the Hindu residents. The Hindu residents of the area were clear that the violence was religiously motivated and one of the motives was to affect an exodus of the Hindu residents. In such cases, even though the perpetrators have not explicitly expressed the aim of affecting exodus, the given circumstances and violence and precedent point to the intention of exodus and therefore would be categorized as a religiously motivated hate crime. Under this category, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. The brutal murder of the Hindu man Radhe Shyam was not an isolated incident stemming from a spontaneous altercation but rather the culmination of sustained persecution faced by his family as the sole Hindu household in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. It is evident from the victim’s wife’s statements, where she revealed that their neighbours repeatedly questioned their presence in the area and pressured them to vacate their home. This persistent harassment, coupled with the fatal attack, suggests that their Hindu identity made them targets of hostility. Furthermore, the deceased's wife also stated that their Muslim neighbours had long been threatening them to leave. Such intimidation aligns with a broader pattern observed in communal conflicts where demographic dominance is asserted through targeted violence, compelling minority Hindu families to abandon their homes. The deliberate escalation of a minor dispute into a fatal assault, alongside the previous harassment linked to a past confrontation, indicates a premeditated attempt to instil fear and force the family into migration. Despite these clear markers of religiously motivated hostility, the police attempted to downplay the incident as a mere personal dispute. 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. Going by the same logic, since the family members testified that the attack on the Hindu man was not accidental but stemmed from a culmination of sustained persecution faced by his family, this case has also been included in the hate tracker.