Muslim youths assault, throw caste slurs at a Dalit youth in Lucknow
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
16 December, 2023
Case Summary
On 17th December, several persons attacked a Dalit family in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow following a dispute among children. The case pertained to the Thakurganj police station area where a scheduled caste man named Akash Kumar from Bari Balaganj lodged a complaint in which he stated that anti-caste slurs were hurled and attempts were made to stab him by the accused Zeeshan, Abujar, Nasir and their accomplices. The victim Akash Kumar disclosed that there are a lot of Muslims living close to his home and not many Hindus. He unveiled that this was not an isolated instance and he faces multiple problems from the Muslim side daily. He disclosed that a child from his family also had serious head wounds on the day of the occurrence. He highlighted that the knife would have penetrated his stomach if his hand hadn’t gotten in the way during the attack.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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 Hindu-Dalit man was attacked over a dispute among children. However, the religious motive and animosity towards the Hindu man are indicated by the caste slurs that were hurled at him. Here the victim himself testified that he was abused with caste slurs by some Muslim youths of the locality. It can be argued that a caste-specific slur was aimed at his micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not his Hindu identity itself. However, as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. In this case, while the Muslim youths hurled caste abuses at the victim, the action was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus. While the immediate trigger of the violence could be the dispute amongst children as mentioned in reports, the fact that caste slurs were hurled at the victim by the perpetrators makes it a religiously motivated hate crime against the victim, which is why this case has been added in the hate tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
