Case Summary

In a village under Titawi police station in Muzaffarnagar district, a Hindu family became the target of a brutal assault at the hands of a Muslim family. The attack was reportedly triggered by a relationship between a Hindu man and a Muslim woman. The Hindu family, including a disabled woman, was subjected to physical violence, abuse, and death threats. According to reports, the Muslim woman had willingly come to the home of the Hindu man and was staying in a nearby abandoned house. Upon learning of her whereabouts, her family forcibly took her back and later filed an FIR against the Hindu man, Sundar, and his minor brother. Sundar was subsequently arrested. However, when the Hindu family filed a complaint regarding the violent attack against them, no immediate action was taken. The assault on the Hindu family, particularly the disabled woman who was dragged by her hair, was not only physically violent but also deeply humiliating and traumatic. The FIR filed by the victims mentions that the accused—Ghaffar, Talib, Mustaq, Nanu, Majid alias Pakka, Sajid alias Shakha, and Munawwar—stormed into their home armed with rods, sticks, and bricks, hurling abuses and issuing death threats. Despite the severity of the attack, initial police inaction raised concerns of bias. Only after public pressure and calls for protest did the authorities register a case against the perpetrators. SP (Rural) Aditya Bansal assured that a fair investigation would be carried out and that the accused would be arrested soon.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker un the primary category of - Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. The sub-category selected is - Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the partner or/and her family attacks the victim. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu man is first forced/pressurized to change his religion by the non-Hindu woman or her family. The force/pressure could involve threats. The trigger for directing violence against the Hindu man is in these cases his refusal to comply and change his religion under threat and/or force. In other cases that have been documented, it is also seen that the Hindu partner is assaulted by the non-Hindu woman or her family simply for his relationship with the non-Hindu woman and by virtue of him following the Hindu faith and not the religion of the non-Hindu woman. In such cases, the relationship is consensual in most cases and the religion of both partners is known to the other. Often, in such cases, there is no direct force/pressure to convert either, however, the attack is a result of the Hindu man being in a relationship with the non-Hindu partner and not following her religion/following Hinduism specifically. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case represents a clear instance of religiously motivated violence targeting a Hindu family, and as such, qualifies as a hate crime. While the trigger may appear to be an interfaith relationship, the subsequent response from the Muslim woman’s family was not limited to familial disapproval—it involved a coordinated and violent assault on the Hindu man’s home. The attackers stormed the residence, hurled religious slurs, dragged a disabled Hindu woman by her hair, and threatened to kill the entire family. Such actions go far beyond personal outrage and reflect a deeper religious hostility. In the Islamic faith, a marriage is considered invalid if a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man who does not convert to Islam. This belief often leads to severe disapproval from Muslim families in interfaith relationships, especially where the man is Hindu. Because of the ingrained element of religious supremacy in Islamic doctrine, there is frequently intense pressure for the non-Muslim partner to convert. In many documented cases, this pressure manifests as harassment, emotional manipulation, and even violence. In this instance, the Hindu man had not converted, making his religious identity the central grievance for the Muslim woman’s family. The Hindu family, it must be noted, did not provoke the situation. The Muslim woman came to the man's house voluntarily, and no evidence of coercion was presented. Yet the retribution they faced was swift, public, and brutal, demonstrating that the issue was not the individual relationship but the assertion of Hindu identity in a space the perpetrators viewed through a communal lens. Furthermore, slogans like “Pakistan Zindabad,” chanted during the attack, added a deeply communal dimension to the incident. This, along with the selective action by authorities, where the Hindu man was arrested promptly while the initial complaint by the Hindu family saw no action, reflects a broader systemic pattern of bias and disregard for Hindu victims of communal violence. This was not simply a domestic dispute or a matter of social friction. It was a calculated attack rooted in religious bigotry, intended to punish a Hindu family for defying communal expectations and asserting agency in a context dominated by religious orthodoxy. As such, the incident is not just interpersonal or emotional—it is a hate crime against Hindus driven by both theological and social hostility.