Hindu man bullied and denied water by Pakistanis in Dubai as revenge for suspension of Indus Water Treaty

Case ID : ea34c21 | Location : Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Date of Incident : Wed, 7 May, 2025

Case ID : ea34c21

Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

7 May, 2025

Hindu man bullied and denied water by Pakistanis in Dubai as revenge for suspension of Indus Water Treaty

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

Following India’s decision to suspend the Indus Water Treaty, cutting off water flowing to Pakistan, in retaliation for the Pahalgam Hindu massacre, an Indian Hindu youth named Vishal was bullied and denied water by Pakistani co-workers in Dubai. He originally hails from Kiccha in the Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand. The co-workers stated this was an act of revenge. According to media reports, Vishal had travelled to Dubai for work through an agent named Sameer from Kashipur. In Dubai, while living with Pakistani co-workers, he faced discrimination and harassment. They told him that since India had stopped Pakistan’s water, he too would be denied access to water. Due to the continuous bullying and lack of basic necessities like drinking water, Vishal’s health deteriorated. He began pleading with his family in India to help him return home, as his physical and mental condition worsened. Despite several attempts, his family initially struggled to bring him back. On May 8th, 2025, Vishal’s family approached the police at the Bansphodan outpost in Kashipur. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Manikant Mishra listened to their concerns and intervened swiftly in this case. The police contacted the agent Sameer, who had facilitated Vishal’s move to Dubai, and collected details about Vishal and others living with him. Fellow residents in Dubai assisted Vishal in getting in touch with his family. The police further helped by obtaining his passport and arranging a return ticket for him. Following this, Vishal was safely brought back to India. On May 15th, Vishal, along with his family, visited the SSP office to express their gratitude. On 22nd April 2025, Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorists linked to The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, killed 26 innocent Hindus in Pahalgam, after confirming their religion. In retaliation for the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India suspended the Indus Water Treaty, cutting off water flowing to Pakistan.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory 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. The case involving Vishal, an Indian Hindu youth in Dubai, is a glaring example of a hate crime because he was deliberately targeted and denied access to water by his Pakistani co-workers due to his national and religious identity. While some may argue that he was targeted solely for being Indian rather than specifically Hindu, it is important to recognise that radical Islamist ideology often harbours particular animosity towards Hindus and perceives India as a Hindu collectivity. The very basis of the partition of India stemmed from the belief among some Muslims that Islam constituted a separate nation, incompatible with coexistence alongside a Hindu-majority India. So any attack on an Indian by a Pakistani can be interpreted as an attack on Hindus due to religious animosity, as the perpetrators view India as a Hindu collectivity. In this incident, the perpetrators justified their actions as "revenge" for India's political decisions, specifically the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty following the Pahalgam anti-Hindu terror attack, where Hindu tourists were killed after their religion was confirmed. The Pakistani co-workers’ conduct of bullying, discriminating, and denying basic necessities such as water was rooted in deep-seated animosity towards Vishal’s Indian background and, by extension, his Hindu identity. Their actions were not random but were explicitly motivated by hatred and disdain for the Hindu community. Since this case fits the parameters of a hate crime, it is being classified under the hate crime database.