Hindu man stabbed to death by Muslims over minor financial dispute, resulting in religious tensions

Case ID : 9958586 | Location : Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 2 September, 2025

Case ID : 9958586

Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, India

2 September, 2025

Hindu man stabbed to death by Muslims over minor financial dispute, resulting in religious tensions

Attack resulting in death

Communal clash/attack

Case Summary

In Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man named Rajkumar was brutally stabbed to death by three Muslim men, Aslam, Shamsul alias Shulla, and Irshad alias Bandar, following a minor financial dispute. Rajkumar’s friend Tinku was also grievously injured in the attack. The incident heightened religious tensions in the area. According to media reports, the deceased victim, Rajkumar (35), a resident of Nawabganj Nagariya, had lent Rs 10,000 to the three accused, who lived in the same village. On 3rd September 2025, at around 4:00 pm, when Rajkumar's repeated requests to return the money went unanswered, he went to the market with Tinku to demand repayment. An argument broke out between Rajkumar and the Muslim accused. Following this, the accused began to beat Rajkumar, and during the assault, one of them stabbed him in the chest with a knife. He collapsed on the spot, bleeding heavily. When Tinku intervened to save him, he was also attacked and sustained injuries. Both victims were rushed to the Community Health Centre at Ganjdundwara, where doctors declared Rajkumar dead. On receiving the news, his family arrived, and anger quickly spread among local residents. In protest, crowds blocked the Kasganj–Badaun highway for nearly two and a half hours, causing long traffic jams and severe inconvenience to commuters. Police officers soon reached the spot, took the body for a post-mortem, and took control of the situation. ASP Rajesh Bharti, Patiali CO Santosh Kumar, and Sahawar CO Shahida Nasreen were present at the scene. Following this, a formal complaint was lodged against the Muslim perpetrators, and an FIR was registered. Considering the involvement of the members of two communities, the police maintained heightened vigilance in the area.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Attack resulting in death. The subcategory selected is- Communal Clash/Attack. Communal clash is a form of collective violence that involves clashes between groups belonging to different religious identities. For a communal clash between Hindus and non-Hindus to qualify as a religiously motivated hate crime, the trigger of the violence itself would have to be anti-Hindu in essence. For example, if there is a Hindu religious procession that comes under attack from a non-Hindu mob, and after the initial attack, Hindus retaliate in self-defence, leading to a communal clash between the two religious communities. While at a later stage, both communities are involved in the clash/violence, the initial trigger of the violence was by the non-Hindu mob against the Hindus and therefore, it could safely be termed as an anti-Hindu violence. Further, the trigger would also have to be religiously motivated. In the cited example, the attack by the non-Hindu mob was against a religious procession and therefore, can be concluded to be religiously motivated. In some cases, the trigger may be non-religious, however, it develops into religious violence against Hindus at a later stage. In such cases too, the foundational animosity towards Hindus becomes the motivating factor of the crime and therefore, it would be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus. Under this category, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. This case concerns the brutal murder of a Hindu man, Rajkumar, by a group of Muslim youths in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh. Although the immediate cause was a monetary dispute, the extreme and disproportionate violence—culminating in Rajkumar’s stabbing and murder—raises grave concerns about the role of communal bias and animosity driving the Muslim attackers’ actions. There is a well-documented pattern across India where seemingly ordinary disputes between Hindus and Muslims spiral into targeted violence against Hindus. In many such cases, what appear to be routine disagreements escalate only when one party belongs to a community viewed with hostility, suggesting that these altercations are exploited as a cover for deeper communal hatred. Tragically, such communal attacks often result in the cold-blooded murder of Hindus by Muslims. In such cases, the excessive use of violence often stems from a mindset of Islamic supremacy, where Muslim extremists regard Hindus as socially and religiously inferior. This supremacist attitude breeds contempt and aggression, especially when a Hindu refuses to submit or concede in a dispute. The belief that Hindus lack equal status fuels violent attempts to assert dominance, frequently under the pretext of minor disagreements. Given the religious identity of the assailants, the nature and severity of the violence, and the wider social and religious context, this incident is being added to the hate crime database in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: While the media reports and the case focus primarily on Rajkumar, the deceased victim, his companion, Tinku, was also subjected to violence by the perpetrators. Consequently, we have recorded the total number of victims as '2'.