Hindu sentiments insulted: Hindu employee pressured to erase tilak by Muslim manager under threat of losing job

Case ID : e2748ab | Location : Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 6 June, 2025

Case ID : e2748ab

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

6 June, 2025

Hindu sentiments insulted: Hindu employee pressured to erase tilak by Muslim manager under threat of losing job

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

On June 7, during the festival of Eid, a Hindu man named Jitesh Sharma was forced to wipe off his tilak by his senior manager, a Muslim man named Rashid Mukadam, who was working at an electronics store, Croma, in Bhandup, Mumbai. Jitesh Sharma was a representative of the Home appliance company, Blue Star, and was deployed in the Croma store in Bhandup, Mumbai. He stated that on the day of Eid, when he reached the store with a tilak on his forehead, his manager, Rashid Mukadam, was visibly miffed and instructed him to remove the religious mark from his forehead if he wanted to continue working in the store or leave the store. Furthermore, the victim was also asked not to come to the store while wearing a tilak. Following this, the victim contacted some Hindu activists, talking about the discrimination. The members of the Hindu organisation came to the store and threatened the store manager over the incident. They stated that if Rashid did not apologise, they would not let the store operate. The video of a heated argument between the store staff and the Hindu activists went viral on social media. In the video, the Hindu activists could be seen urging the manager to issue Rashid a warning, insisting that no employee should be shamed for following their faith. After the ruckus, the store manager could be seen calling Rashid and asking him to apologise to Jitesh Sharma. After the video of the incident went viral, several people on social media expressed their outrage at the workplace harassment faced by the Hindu employee for sporting his faith-based expression. “This is Bharat, not the Middle East,” one netizen wrote, echoing the outrage expressed across social media platforms. There was a surge in calls for accountability, with many demanding action against Rashid and praising Sharma for holding his ground. As of the date of writing this, no police complaint has been filed.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Attack not resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category selected 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. This case has been added to the tracker due to it being a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime. A Hindu man was asked to wipe off his tilak by a Muslim man. He was also warned not to return to work while wearing it. The tilak is a religious symbol and an expression of the Hindu faith, and also has deep cultural and religious significance. The victim was explicitly told not to enter the shop while wearing the tilak. He was essentially held hostage because of his job, forced to choose between his livelihood and his Hindu faith, an evident form of religious persecution. Rashid abused his managerial authority to suppress and restrict an outward display of Hinduism. His actions portrayed a mindset of religious supremacy. Furthermore, this shows that predatory proselytisation is not always done through force; it often manifests in quiet, systematic and subtle ways, like this case, where the aim is to shame, suppress, and gradually erase Hindu identity from visible life. This subtle coercion is a form of cultural erasure, where Hindus are slowly pushed to either privatise or abandon their religious identity in public spaces. This case is on the lines of a larger pattern where Hindus are attacked, shamed, or silenced for any outward displays of Hinduism, such as a tilak, having a shikha or wearing a kalawa. This portrays the religious animosity that Abrahamic faiths (Christianity and Islam) have towards polytheists, such as Hindus, where any outward or harmless display of their faith is met with resistance. Such acts are not isolated but part of an ongoing effort to normalise Hindu exclusion and gradually delegitimise Hindu presence in public spaces. Therefore, this case has been added to the tracker.