Chief of Hindu organisation receives beheading threats over Ajmer Dargah petition

Case ID : b45f384 | Location : Delhi, Delhi, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 29 November, 2024

Case ID : b45f384

Delhi, Delhi, India

29 November, 2024

Chief of Hindu organisation receives beheading threats over Ajmer Dargah petition

Hate speech against Hindus

Violent threats

Case Summary

Vishnu Gupta, the Chief of Hindu Sena, filed a formal complaint with the Barakhamba Road police station in Delhi, stating that he had received death threats. Gupta had made headlines for filing a petition in an Ajmer court, stating that the dargah of Sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer was originally a Shiv Mandir. According to Gupta, he received two threatening phone calls, one from Canada and the other from India, both of which warned him to withdraw his legal case or face dire consequences. Gupta reported that he received the first call while giving an interview at Mandi House. The caller, who identified himself as being in Canada, threatened to behead Gupta if he did not drop his case regarding the Ajmer Dargah. Gupta provided a recording of this call as evidence. Later that day, Gupta received a second threatening call from a man named Ramjan Baig, who reiterated the same demand, threatening to kill him unless he withdrew the case. In his complaint, Gupta expressed that he had faced similar threats in the past in relation to other high-profile cases, including those concerning the Krishna Janmabhoomi and Gyanvapi disputes. Despite the threats, Gupta remained resolute, stating that he would not be intimidated and that advocating for the rights of Hindu temples was his legal right. Gupta reiterated that the Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple in Ajmer belonged to Hindus and they would continue to fight for the restoration of their rights through the legal system. Gupta’s petition, filed in September 2024, sought the recognition of the Ajmer Dargah as a Shiv temple and demanded that Hindu worship rights be restored at the site. The local court in Ajmer took cognisance of the case and issued notices to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Dargah Committee, and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the primary category 'hate speech against Hindus' under the sub-category 'violent threats'. Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is the most dangerous form of hate speech since it goes beyond discriminatory and prejudicial language to express the intent of causing harm to an individual or a group of people based on their religious identity and faith. There could be several different kinds of threats that are issued to Hindus based on religious animosity. An explicit threat would mean the direct threat of violence towards an individual Hindu, a group of Hindus or Hindus at large. Physical violence, death threats, threats of destruction of property belonging to Hindus and threats of genocide would mean explicit threats against Hindus for their religious identity. Implicit threats may not be a direct threat but implied through the use of symbols of actions – for example – in the Nupur Sharma case, other than explicit threats, there were also implicit threats when Islamists took to the streets to burn and beat her effigies. It implies that they want to do the same to Nupur Sharma – thereby is considered an implicit threat. Violent threats can be delivered in person, through letters, phone calls, graffiti, or increasingly through social media and other online platforms. It would be important to understand that a threat – explicit or implicit, online or offline – to an individual who happens to be a Hindu does not qualify as a religiously motivated threat. Such a threat, while vile and dangerous, could be owing to non-religious reasons and/or personal animosity. To qualify as a religiously motivated threat, it would need to exhibit an indication that the individual is being targeted for religious reasons and/or owing to his/her religious identity as a Hindu. In this case, the lawyer had filed a petition in court claiming that the Sufi Dargah in Ajmer was actually a Hindu Shiva temple. The lawyer used the legal remedy available to every Indian citizen, however, he got beheading threats for his petition. The threat, ab initio, is a crime unto itself, however, what gives it a religious colour is the fact that the threat was specifically aimed at silencing the lawyer because he believed a Hindu temple existed under the Dargah. As such, the threat itself came from supremacist ideology and aimed to restrict the Hindu lawyer from fighting for his and the community's religious right.