Hindu student assaulted, called ‘kafir’ and threatened with being burned alive by Muslim classmates

Case ID : a6cace8 | Location : Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 22 December, 2025

Case ID : a6cace8

Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, India

22 December, 2025

Hindu student assaulted, called ‘kafir’ and threatened with being burned alive by Muslim classmates

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

Hindu paramedical student Mukesh Kumar faced brutal assault and life-threatening intimidation at the hands of three Muslim classmates at Rajkiya Medical College in Budaun, Uttar Pradesh. On 23 December 2025, the students, identified as Noman Khan, Afnan, and Nazruddin, physically attacked him inside the college campus. During the assault, they used derogatory religious language, calling him “kafir,” and threatened to replicate a “Bangladesh-like” incident by setting him on fire with petrol. The harassment continued repeatedly, including outside the college near a local tea shop. Following the attacks, Mukesh approached the college administration. The accused were made to write a formal apology and were suspended for fifteen days. Despite these measures, the intimidation continued, raising serious concerns about the safety and rights of Hindu students on campus. Community members, including activists from the Vishva Hindu Parishad, intervened and filed a complaint with the local police on Mukesh’s behalf. On 26 December 2025, the Civil Lines Kotwali police registered a case against the three accused under sections covering assault, threats to kill, and public order offences. They were subsequently arrested. The incident has provoked outrage among the local Hindu community, highlighting the urgent need for strict measures to protect students from religiously motivated violence and to safeguard Hindu youth in educational institutions.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case had been documented under the selected primary category: Attack not resulting in Death. Under this, the selected secondary category 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. Another selected primary category is: Hate speech against Hindus. Under this, the selected secondary category is: Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. This incident qualifies as a religiously motivated hate crime because the violence and intimidation directed at Mukesh Kumar were explicitly tied to his Hindu religious identity. The assault was accompanied by derogatory religious slurs, including the use of the term “kafir,” and threats of extreme violence. Such language demonstrates that the attack was driven by religious bias rather than a personal dispute or routine campus altercation. The conduct of the accused aligns with a broader ideological hostility toward non Muslims rooted in certain interpretations of Islamic theology, where non believers are labelled as kafirs and viewed as inferior unless they submit or convert. These ideas are not merely abstract but often manifest in actions that seek to humiliate, dominate, or silence non-Muslims. The explicit use of religious slurs during the assault reflects this ideological conditioning and its translation into real-world violence. Such a framework fosters an “us versus them” mindset in which assertions of Hindu identity or equal presence are treated as threats. In institutional spaces like educational campuses, this can translate into attempts to assert dominance through intimidation and violence. In this case, the coordinated attack by multiple accused, the religious abuse, and the threats of mass violence indicate an effort to suppress the Hindu presence through fear. The reference made by the accused to carrying out a “Bangladesh-like” incident is a critical indicator of motive. At the time of the assault, there were widespread reports of persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh, including attacks on homes, temples, and killings that forced Hindu families to flee. By invoking Bangladesh as a threat, the accused drew upon a real and ongoing pattern of anti-Hindu violence to intimidate the victim. This was not a metaphorical remark but an explicit warning that similar collective violence against Hindus could be replicated locally, thereby weaponising the persecution of Hindus abroad to instil fear in a Hindu student in India. The repeated nature of the harassment further establishes intent. The assault inside the college campus was followed by continued intimidation outside the institution, including near a local tea shop. Even after the college administration intervened and imposed disciplinary measures, the threats persisted. This sustained pattern reflects targeted hostility aimed at enforcing fear and submission rather than a one-time outburst. Taken together, the religious slurs, invocation of anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh, repeated intimidation, and coordinated assault establish this incident as a clear case of hate speech and violence against Hindus. The attack was premeditated, bias-driven, and aimed at punishing and silencing a Hindu student for his religious identity, meeting the defining criteria of a hate crime and warranting its inclusion in the tracker.