Hindu faith mocked: Muslim teacher denigrates goddess Sita; downplays Pahalgam anti-Hindu terror attack
Dindori, Madhya Pradesh, India 
23 April, 2025
Case Summary
In Dindori, Madhya Pradesh, a Muslim lecturer named Naseem Bano made objectionable remarks about Hindu goddess Sita and the Pahalgam anti-Hindu terror attack on her WhatsApp status. In a horrific act of terror in the Baisaran Valley of Pahalgam, Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, Islamic terrorists systematically identified and targeted Hindu victims. The assailants demanded names and religious identities, inspected ID cards, coerced tourists to recite the Kalma, and even forcibly pulled down their pants to check for circumcision, all to single out non-Muslims. Once identified, the Hindus were shot at point-blank range. The attack, carried out by operatives of The Resistance Force, a proxy of the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed the lives of 24 Hindus and left 16 others critically injured. Following the terror attack, Naseem Bano, a guest lecturer at Adarsh College in Dindori, posted a WhatsApp status downplaying the Pahalgam terror attack. She deliberately drew a false equivalence between this Hindu massacre and the rare instances of Muslims being asked to chant "Jai Sri Ram." This was done deliberately to diminish the gravity of the Pahalgam attack. Additionally, she posted objectionable remarks regarding Sita Haran, an episode in the Hindu epic Ramayana where Ravana abducts Maa Sita. Following her posts, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a demonstration outside the City Kotwali police station, demanding strict action against the lecturer. They filed a complaint, and as a result, sections related to inciting religious sentiments were imposed against her. The police then launched an investigation into the matter. ABVP leaders told the media that Dr Bano had made controversial remarks about the Pahalgam attack and had denigrated a Hindu deity. \ After the Muslim lecturer's hate speech went viral, the accused’s family claimed that someone else had shared the video on her WhatsApp account and that she did not create it. They also said that it was shared by mistake, and the incident was being deliberately exaggerated as a religious controversy. Such incidents are not new in Madhya Pradesh. On 22 April 2025, three Muslim men named Mohammad Osaf Khan, Tanveer Qureshi, and Waseem Khan were arrested by the police for making derogatory remarks about the anti-Hindu terror attack in Pahalgam. This incident was added to the Hate Crime Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is - Anti-Hindu slurs and 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. The other subcategory selected is- Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution. Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution/ethnic cleansing refers to the act of denying or minimising the fact of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. This often involves denying the scale, mechanisms, religious intent, or even the occurrence of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. Hate speech of this kind involves the dissemination of falsehoods that deny or distort established historical facts or mock the suffering of Hindus by saying that they deserved the persecution, motivated by Hinduphobia. Denying such atrocities is not only about the denial of facts or rewriting/revising history, but it also delegitimises the religiously motivated persecution of Hindus, the religious hate/motivation/animosity that led to the persecution, and dehumanises Hindus as a religious group. Such denial of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus not only denies the suffering but also paves the way for future/present atrocities and hate speech, inciting prejudice and violence against Hindus. It also provides a justification for violence by delinking religious animosity from religiously motivated crimes committed against Hindus. Since such denial and/or mocking of genocide/ethnic cleansing/atrocities motivated by religious animosity leads to present and future ramifications of creating more hate speech, violence, dehumanisation and delegitimisation, it would be considered hate speech under this category. This case is being added to the hate crime database as it has several clear indicators of religious bias, justifying its inclusion in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Firstly, the perpetrator made objectionable remarks about the Hindu goddess Sita, who is one of the most revered deities in Hinduism. Any disrespect or abuse directed at her is seen as an insult to the entire Hindu faith. Hindu deities are deeply sacred and highly revered in the eyes of Hindus, so derogatory comments about them are highly offensive and hateful. Such actions are often motivated by religious animosity towards Hinduism and are consistent with patterns observed in other documented cases of anti-Hindu hate speech. While the act is committed by an individual, it is influenced by Islamic theology, which opposes and disrespects polytheism and its deities. Historically, this has manifested as hostility towards Hindus and their religious practices. This is one of the reasons why this instance is classified as a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus. Furthermore, the accused downplayed the barbaric killing of Hindus in Pahalgam by drawing illogical parallels between the Islamic terror attack and the extremely rare and isolated instances of Muslims being asked to chant 'Jai Sri Ram'. Drawing a parallel between the Pahalgam Hindu massacre, a premeditated Islamic terrorist attack in which Hindu pilgrims were killed solely for their religious identity, and isolated incidents where Muslims were allegedly asked to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is not only factually flawed but also morally reprehensible. These two situations differ fundamentally in their intent, scale, context, and consequences, and drawing such parallels serves only to dilute the horror of a genocidal act. The Pahalgam attack involved the systematic targeting and execution of innocent Hindu civilians by armed Islamic terrorists, driven by religious hatred and with the backing of transnational jihadist ideologies. Victims were reportedly asked their religion before being shot point-blank—a hallmark of genocidal violence aimed at instilling fear in the Hindu community. In contrast, the alleged instances involving forced chanting of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, are not systematic, state-backed, or designed as part of a broader campaign of religious cleansing. They are often individual acts of aggression, not representative of organised Hindu efforts to target Muslims. Equating these two vastly different events not only diminishes the gravity of the Pahalgam massacre but also masks the reality of anti-Hindu hatred embedded in acts of Islamist terror. It is an attempt to create false moral equivalence, which trivialises the targeted killing of people based on their Hindu faith and undermines genuine discourse on religiously motivated hate crimes. These statements were not merely 'mischievous online behaviour'; rather, they starkly highlight the animosity and hatred directed at Hindus and Hinduism as a whole. This reflects a deep-rooted problem of a lack of empathy towards Hindu victims of Islamic terror. Such instances arise from religious animosity that is sanctioned by Islamic theology and certain Islamic preachers. These comparisons dehumanise Hindus as a group and foster an environment conducive to future violence against them. Given that both of the anti-Hindu remarks of the accused reflect clear hostility and animosity towards Hindus and their faith, this incident qualifies as a hate crime and is therefore being included in the Hate Crime Database.
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
female
Sources 
