Hindu women flee with infants as Muslim mob unleashed violence and poisoned water tanks in Murshidabad
Murshidabad, West Bengal, India 
10 April, 2025
Case Summary
Amidst the anti-Hindu violence that Muslims unleashed in Murshidabad under the guise of protests against the newly enacted Waqf Amendment Act, a middle-aged Hindu woman, one of the victims to the horror, provided a detailed account of anti-Hindu violence. She said that Muslims have poisoned water tanks belonging to the Hindu community. “We couldn’t drink water as it had been laced with poison,” she said. Visuals in which several Hindu women were escaping from Murshidabad with young kids, even infants as old as 6 days, surfaced. The testimony of the Hindu victim reinforces the fact that the violence unleashed by Islamists in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district was distinctly communal in nature. On 11th April, 2025, Murshidabad district in West Bengal, which has a significant Muslim population, witnessed widespread violence, vandalism, arson, and targeted assaults against the Hindu community, all under the pretext of protests against the newly enacted Waqf Amendment Act. Following the conclusion of Jumma Namaz, mobs went on a rampage in the Suti and Samserganj areas, disrupting train services, damaging public infrastructure, and bringing normal life to a standstill. The office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) was vandalised with stones and sticks, creating an atmosphere of chaos and fear. However, what stands out is the deliberate and systematic targeting of the Hindu community under the guise of these protests. Local reports also suggested that Hindu temples were attacked and idols desecrated. Hundreds of Hindus have been compelled to flee their homes in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district in the wake of an Islamic onslaught carried out under the pretext of protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2025, an outbreak of violence that has already claimed three lives.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- Attack not resulting in death. The sub-category relevant in this case 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. The other sub-category 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 religious processions 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. The third sub-category relevant here 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 harbouring 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 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 under this sub-category. Such crimes are religiously motivated and therefore are hate crimes. This case clearly qualifies as a religiously motivated hate crime because the statements made by Hindu victims all point to violence directed at individuals solely because of their Hindu faith. The attack occurred in the context of protests against the Waqf Amendment Act but involved the deliberate targeting of Hindus through acts such as poisoning community water tanks and assaulting individuals. These actions were not random or incidental; they were aimed at instilling fear in the Hindu population and punishing them for their identity, without any specific provocation. This reflects a broader pattern of religiously motivated violence in which Hindu individuals are attacked solely for visible signs of their faith or for simply being Hindu. Moreover, the case reflects traits of both a communal attack and an attempt to induce migration. In addition to physical attacks and destruction of property, there was also an attempt to poison water tanks used by the Hindu community, which poses a grave threat to life and indicates a premeditated effort to make the area uninhabitable for them. The intent behind such actions appears to be not only to harm individuals but to drive out the Hindu population from certain areas, effectively altering the demographic composition. This makes the violence both an act of communal aggression and a tool for religious cleansing, which squarely places it in the category of a religiously motivated hate crime.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
