Hindu boy's throat slit by Muslim girlfriend's father as her mother invokes Allah

Case ID : d1fb7a6 | Location : West Delhi, Delhi, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 1 February, 2018

Case ID : d1fb7a6

West Delhi, Delhi, India

1 February, 2018

Hindu boy's throat slit by Muslim girlfriend's father as her mother invokes Allah

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Killed by non-Hindu partner's family

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In February 2018, a 23-year-old Hindu youth named Ankit Saxena was brutally murdered in Delhi due to his relationship with a Muslim girl named Shehzadi. The perpetrators were Shehzadi's family members, who vehemently opposed their daughter's relationship with a Hindu boy. Despite pressure to break off the relationship, Ankit did not comply, leading to his murder. The girl's family engineered a road rage incident as part of their premeditated plan. Shehzadi's mother, wearing a helmet to conceal her identity, deliberately rammed her scooter into Ankit's vehicle at a traffic intersection. When Ankit stepped out to help, he was confronted by Shehzadi's mother and other family members. They heckled and abused him, blaming him for influencing Shehzadi to leave home. Despite Ankit's denials and requests to involve the police, the family continued to assault him. Eyewitnesses reported that when Ankit's parents arrived at the scene, Shehzadi's mother attacked Ankit's mother, causing her to fall. As Ankit bent down to help his mother, Shehzadi's uncle and brother grabbed him by the hair and continued beating him. Shehzadi's uncle, Mohammad Salim, and another minor also participated in the attack, vowing to teach Ankit a lesson for dishonouring their family. Shehnaz Begum invoked Allah, urging the others not to spare Ankit. “Tumhe kasam hai allah kee ki isko aaj naho chhodna“, she said. Following her invocation, Akbar Ali slit Ankit Saxena's throat, brutally killing him. While the family of Ankit’s girlfriend was beating him up, Ankit’s friend tried to rescue him. When he proceeded to rescue Ankit, Shehnaz Begum tried to get violent with him and bite his hand. She also threatened him to back off, since he had a sister too. The court convicted them in the murder case on December 23, 2023. On March 7, 2024, the three convicts were sentenced to life imprisonment. The court further imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on Akbar Ali (father of the girl), Shehnaz Begum (mother of the girl) and Mohammad Salim (uncle of the girl).

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case deserves to be documented as a hate crime motivated by religion because the Muslim woman's relatives brutally killed the Hindu youth just because he was in a relationship with her and because he adhered to Hinduism rather than the non-Hindu woman's religion. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced/pressured to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the family of the non-Hindu partner murders 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 and her family start 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-Muslim 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’s family. The pressure could involve threats. The trigger to murdering the Hindu man in these cases is 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 murdered by the family of the non-Hindu woman 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 murder 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. In this case, two primary factors establish that it was a religiously motivated hate crime. The first component which makes it worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is the testimony of the family of the victim. The mother and father of the Hindu youth had themselves testified that their son was killed by his Muslim partner's family, evidently because they did not approve of their daughter being in a relationship with a man who was an adherent of Hinduism and not Islam. Second, this case should be included in this database because the victim is no longer alive and there is a precedent of such cases turning out to be hate crimes.