SRINAGAR (Kashmir English): A fresh wave of communal violence and hate crimes targeting Muslims and Dalits across India in August has once again exposed the deepening culture of intolerance fostered by the Hindutva ideology of RSS, BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal under the regime of Narendra Modi.
A report compiled by Kashmir Media Service said, from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat to Assam, and Haryana to Uttarakhand, shocking incidents of lynching, mob assaults, mosque burnings, humiliation of Muslim students, and caste-based attacks have left India shaken, raising global concerns about state-sponsored persecution of minorities.
In Maharashtra, a Hindu policeman, Chetan Singh, shot dead his senior officer and three Muslim passengers on a moving train while glorifying Modi and Yogi Adityanath.
In Jalgaon district, a 20-year-old Muslim student, Suleman Khan, was beaten to death by extremists for talking to a girl from another community.
Another youth, Mohammad Shoaib, was brutally attacked near Surat railway station and later denied medical treatment at multiple hospitals in Delhi NCR.
In Gujarat, two madrassa students, Umar (17) and Khizar (16), were violently assaulted in Ahmedabad for wearing kurta-pajama and skullcaps, while in Junagadh, a Dalit youth was thrashed with belts and sticks by upper-caste Hindus.
On Independence Day in Bhavnagar, schoolchildren were made to perform a play portraying Muslims as “terrorists” in burqas, sparking outrage.
In Assam’s Morigaon district, Saddam Hussain was lynched by a Hindutva mob while returning from a village with his friends.
In Haryana’s Nuh district, VHP-led violence spread to Gurugram where a mosque was torched and its naib imam, 19-year-old Saad, was shot dead.
In Madhya Pradesh, Bajrang Dal activists shouted blasphemous slogans outside a movie theatre in Indore.
In Hyderabad, Hindutva groups staged a sit-in demanding the closure of Madrasa Noomania inside the 400-year-old Masjid-e-Hussaini.
In Uttar Pradesh, multiple incidents were reported, including brutal assault on Fardeen, a Muslim youth in Muzaffarnagar, by over 10 men using sharp weapons, vandalism of Nawab Abdus Samad’s shrine in Fatehpur by Bajrang Dal activists and assault on Mushtaq Ali in Gorakhpur, leaving him critically injured.
Booking of AMU student leader Talha Mannan for pro-Palestine slogans during a protest, and attack on a Dalit engineer in Ballia by a BJP worker are the other such incidents reported during the period.
In Uttarakhand, an elderly Muslim, Rizwan, was forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and threatened with beard-cutting. Lynching attempt was made on truck driver in Uttarakhand’s Srinagar, forcing him to chant Hindutva slogans.
Equally horrifying were gendered hate crimes where a Muslim minor girl was gang-raped by Hindutva men who circulated the video, while in another incident, a Muslim woman was stripped and assaulted in public. A Muslim man who tried to save her was nearly lynched.
Rise of hate-fueled violence in India
These incidents, occurring within just weeks, reflect the alarming rise of hate-fueled violence under BJP rule, with impunity for perpetrators and silence from Indian institutions.
Analysts and rights activists warn that India is descending into a cycle of communal fascism, where minorities live under constant fear and humiliation.
