Muslim girlfriend's kin kill Hindu youth, his body chopped into eight pieces, discovered in a brook

Case ID : e979fcf | Location : Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 5 June, 2023

Case ID : e979fcf

Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, India

5 June, 2023

Muslim girlfriend's kin kill Hindu youth, his body chopped into eight pieces, discovered in a brook

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 Himachal Pradesh, a Hindu man named Manohar Lal was found murdered in the Saluni village of district Chamba. His body, chopped into eight pieces, was discovered in a brook on June 9, 2023, after he went missing on June 6. The police arrested five suspects, including two juvenile females and three adults, in connection with the case. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Vinod Kumar Dhiman denied the communal angle in the matter. Reports suggest that Manohar had an affair with a Muslim girl named Rukhsana. Her family members were not in favour of the relationship. On June 6, Manohar went missing while returning to his home. His family members searched for him but could not find any traces. Three days later, some people noticed a foul smell coming out of the brook. They informed the police about the sack. The police reached the spot, recovered the bag, and found a chopped dead body. The police confirmed that the Hindu man was indeed in a relationship with a Muslim woman but 'denied communal angle'. “Though the victim was Hindu and the accused are Muslims, there was no communal angle in the matter. The victim and accused were having an affair. We have arrested five people, two juvenile females, and three adults. Prima facie, there is no evidence of the communal angle in the murder,” said ASP Dhiman. The mother of the victim demanded a death sentence for the accused. She accused Rukhsana’s uncle Musafir of being involved in the murder.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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. Now, speaking about this case, even though the Muslim partner's family killed the Hindu youth since the police denied a communal angle in the crime, people may argue that it is possible that the crime was not motivated by religion, and as such, it should not be included in this tracker. Therefore, at this point, it becomes essential to understand why then, we have added this case to the Hindu hate tracker. In several cases where a Hindu man is in a relationship with a Muslim woman, the man ends up being assaulted or killed by the family of the Muslim woman because the family of the Muslim partner disapprove of their relationship. This disapproval mostly stems from the difference in the religious identity of the couple. According to Islamic law, a marriage is not deemed lawful until the non-Muslim spouse agrees to convert to Islam. The Muslim woman's family views this as the primary source of disapproval, and it is frequently observed that this disapproval results in the Muslim partner's family either assaulting or killing the non-Muslim partner. The police, in many such cases, where the motive behind the crime is obvious but not explicitly mentioned, deny that the crime committed was in any way motivated by a religious bias or say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to the crime. Several factors are generally at play here. Many a time the police downplay incidents of low-level communal crime because it is their jurisdiction that comes under question. The police also often say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to a crime when there was one because they wish to ensure that owing to the crime already committed, there is no further flare-up in the area. Likewise, the Left media and the leftist elite are also inclined to emphasise this "no communal angle" trope, especially wherever the victim of the crime is a Hindu. However, to determine whether such cases are religiously motivated hate crimes or not, one needs to understand what is a ‘communal angle’ in a crime. When we hear the phrase ‘communal angle’, the instant image that we have in mind is that of what happened during the Delhi Riots. There are crimes where the communal angle is glaringly obvious, like the Delhi Riots, and there are others, where the trigger of the communal crime could be extremely different and even seemingly benign. Take the example of Lotan Nishad for example. In April 2020, Lotan Nishad was sitting at a tea shop in the village at around 9.30 am. While reading the morning newspaper, he got into a verbal confrontation, over the role of Tablighi Jamaat in transmitting the Wuhan Coronavirus, with some people sitting there. Mohammad Sona, who was present there, began assaulting the victim. After some time Sona brought a gun and fired at him from close range. Nishad fell to the ground and started bleeding. He died. Immediately, after a statement by the police, the ‘liberal’ ecosystem began to peddle the ‘no communal angle’ trope. However, only a police statement or a media report, for instance, cannot be enough to determine whether there is a communal angle present in the crime that has been committed. In fact, to determine whether the crime is communal in nature or not, we need to emphasize the ground realities. For example in the case of Rinku Sharma, the Bajrang Dal activist who was mercilessly stabbed in his house in front of his family members in Delhi’s Mangolpuri area in the year 2021, the leftist media and the leftist ecosystem had tried to peddle that there was no communal angle to the crime. Even the police denied that the crime was communal in nature. However, Opindia spoke to several people who are on the ground with the family of Rinku Sharma and we were told that the communal tension in the area is palpable. The family of Rinku Sharma has said that the Muslims of the area held a grudge against Rinku ever since he celebrated the Ram Mandir verdict. Like the case of Rinku Sharma, those cases where even if the police have denied a communal angle or the leftist media have gone on an overdrive to peddle the ‘no communal angle’ trope, the ground reality, like the victim’s family or relative's testimonies, make it clear that there was an obvious religious bias that led to the crime, will be documented in this tracker.