Hindu man murdered for opposing conversion to Christianity

Case ID : a0378d0 | Location : Bidar, Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 7 November, 2024

Case ID : a0378d0

Bidar, Karnataka, India

7 November, 2024

Hindu man murdered for opposing conversion to Christianity

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Case Summary

In the Satoli village of the Mannalli Police Station area in Bidar, Karnataka, a 52-year-old Hindu man identified as Basavaraj Narasappa was brutally murdered by his wife and three children. Reports suggest that Narasappa, who was deaf and mute, was killed by his family members as he refused to convert to Christianity and questioned why Hindu rituals were not being performed at home and why no rituals were conducted during the Dussehra festival. A case was registered at Mannalli Police Station against the victim’s family members based on the complaint of his brother Mallikarjun. The wife and three children were arrested by the police. The police refuted the claims of the matter being related to religious conversion and stated that the family killed the man over a property dispute.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added as a religiously motivated hate crime under the prime category of 'Attack resulting in death' of the tracker. Based on the details, the first sub-category that has been selected under the above-mentioned category is- Murdered for refusing to convert. The second sub-category selected is- Attacked for opposing radicals/or trying to save victim from radicals In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified 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. Here, the victim, Basavaraj Narasappa, was killed by his own family members after he refused to convert to Christianity and questioned the abandonment of Hindu rituals in his household. The attack was fueled by a desire to enforce religious conformity, making it a clear case of religious intolerance, where a family member was murdered for opposing the radical views of his family members and for standing firm in his Hindu identity. In this case, the police refuted the claims of the matter being related to religious conversion and stated that the family killed the man over a property 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 brother of the deceased testified that he was murdered by his own family members for refusing to convert to Christianity, this case has also been included in the hate tracker.