Hindu student thrashed by Muslim classmates for sporting a tilak, threatened to convert to Islam or face death

Case ID : e97a2f8 | Location : Alwar, Rajasthan, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 24 July, 2023

Case ID : e97a2f8

Alwar, Rajasthan, India

24 July, 2023

Hindu student thrashed by Muslim classmates for sporting a tilak, threatened to convert to Islam or face death

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Rajasthan's Alwar district, an incident of a Hindu boy being assaulted on July 27, 2023 for wearing a tilak led to tensions in the area. The altercation occurred at the Government Higher Secondary School in Chauma Village. It began on July 25 when Muslim students protested against the Hindu student's tilak, and the next day, Hindu students wore it in defiance, sparking further conflict. Despite attempts by the principal to discourage objections to the tilak, around 7 or 8 Muslim students confronted a Hindu boy in class eleven, attempting to remove his tilak. When he sought help from the principal, he was surrounded, his tilak removed, and severely beaten. A relative of one of the accused, Yusuf Mev, joined the assault and fled the scene. The victim said that the assailants threatened him and his family to convert to Islam or face death. The boy's family filed a complaint with the Ramgarh police station, leading to a case against six individuals under various sections of the IPC. Police deployed a heavy force in the village to prevent further escalation and are facilitating negotiations between the parties involved.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under two prime categories of the tracker because of the various distinct components that demonstrate the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and their deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. Because of the case's specifics, we have put this case under the prime category: Predatory Proselytization and to narrow down the search further we have chosen the sub-category 'Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' under this core category. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats in this case find their root on discriminatory grounds which have the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion and forceful circumcision. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment in an attempt to make the Hindu victim abandon his/her professed religion and adopt the religion of the perpetrator. In this sub-category, we would include cases where the non-Hindu perpetrator harassed, threatened or coerced the victim to convert, however, the Hindu victim did not convert to another faith. Cases where the victim was converted owing to the harassment and threats would be documented in another sub-category. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. In this case, the Hindu victim stated that the Muslim assailants threatened him and his family to convert to Islam or face death. In such cases, usually because of the fear of harm, the victims usually accede to the demands of conversion, which is, clearly the sole aim of the perpetrators. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the intention of disenfranchising them from it, the case has been included under the sub-category 'attempting to convert by harassment/threat' of 'Predatory Proselytisation. The second core category selected, according to the case details, is 'Attack not resulting in death'. To further narrow down the search, we have chosen the sub-category of 'attacked for Hindu identity' under the principal category. 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. In this case, the first and foremost element of the hate crime is that the non-Hindu perpetrators threatened the boy to convert to Islam or faith death. The other element of the crime is the non-Hindu perpetrators forcefully removing the tilak, a symbol of Hindu religious identity, from the boy's forehead. In both of these elements, the animosity of the non-Hindu perpetrator was with the boy's professed religious identity. The aim was to disenfranchise the boy from his Hindu religious identity by force, and threat and by removing his expression of religiosity. Because the faith of the victim is at the heart of the crime, this case is being classified as a religiously motivated hate crime.