Hindu shop owner Mukesh attacked by Muslims for playing Hanuman Chalisa

Case ID : 9d553c4 | Location : Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 26 March, 2024

Case ID : 9d553c4

Karnataka, India

26 March, 2024

Hindu shop owner Mukesh attacked by Muslims for playing Hanuman Chalisa

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Mukesh, the owner of a Hindu store in Bengaluru, Karnataka, was beaten up for playing the Hanuman Chalisa in his shop. The incident occurred on Jumma Masjid Road in the Siddanna Galli area on Sunday, March 17. Mukesh’s father, speaking to the media lamented that his son was brutally assaulted for simply playing Hanuman bhajans inside his own store. The Hindu shop owner, who spoke with ANI about what transpired, said that on Sunday, March 17, at around six o’clock in the evening, three or four local Muslims approached him and asked him to stop playing Hanuman bhajans inside the shop. When Mukesh refused to comply with their demands and inquired what the issues they were having, the Muslims said that it was time for their Azaan. Mukesh added that he attempted to persuade them that there was still time for Azaan, but they refused to hear him and grabbed him by the neck. When Mukesh stepped out of his shop to confront them, the accused started beating him up and threatened to stab him with a knife, he said. Mukesh responded in the positive when asked if he would be able to identify the accused. He said they were Muslim youths from the area. Notably, Halasuru Gate Police Station in charge in Bengaluru, Karnataka, while speaking to OpIndia had denied any communal angle in the matter.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the hate tracker under the prime category of- Attack not resulting in death and under this, the 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. In this case, the Hindu man was brutally attacked by Islamists for playing bhajans (devotional songs) inside his shop. Bhajans are a form of religious expression and worship in Hinduism. Attacking individuals for performing or playing bhajans is an attempt to suppress their right to practice their religion. Moreover, it is an act of hostility directed at their faith and religious identity. The attack, in this case, was unprovoked as the benign Hindu devotee was merely playing bhajans in his shop, without creating any sort of disturbance for others. However, the Muslim perpetrators, out of their animosity for the Hindu religion, found it disturbing and launched a vicious attack on the victim. Since intrinsic animosity towards Hindus and their religious beliefs became the motivating factor of the crime, this case has been documented as a religiously motivated hate crime in this tracker. It may be noted that here, despite the fact that the Hindu shop owner was beaten by a group pf Muslim men over playing Hindu devotional songs, the police denied communal angle in the crime. 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, to determine whether such cases are religiously motivated hate crimes or not, one needs to understand what is a ‘communal angle’ in a crime. When we hear the phrase ‘communal angle’, the instant image that we have in mind is that of what happened during the Delhi Riots. There are crimes where the communal angle are glaringly obvious, like the Delhi Riots, and there are others, where the trigger of the communal crime could be extremely different and even seemingly benign. Take the example of Lotan Nishad for example. In April 2020, Lotan Nishad was sitting at a tea shop in the village at around 9.30 am. While reading the morning newspaper, he got into a verbal confrontation, over the role of Tablighi Jamaat in transmitting the Wuhan Coronavirus, with some people sitting there. Mohammad Sona, who was present there, began assaulting the victim. After some time Sona brought a gun and fired at him from close range. Nishad fell to the ground and started bleeding. He died. Immediately, after a statement by the police, the ‘liberal’ ecosystem began to peddle the ‘no communal angle’ trope. 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, the Hindu youth himself spoke to the media and confirmed that he was beaten by the Muslims for playing Hindu devotional songs in his shop. In this instance, the Hindu youth's religious identity served as the catalyst for the assault, suggesting that religious hatred was the driving force behind the crime.