Hindu extremist mob assaults Muslim man over false accusations of love jihad
Hindu extremists assaulted a Muslim man, Ishaan, while he was sitting beside a Hindu woman inside a temple premises in far-right Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly. The men baselessly accused Ishaan of “Love Jihad,” a Hindu extremist conspiracy theory that claims Muslim men have an agenda to seduce Hindu women into Islam. A video of the incident shows a mob of men surrounding Ishaan on all sides and beating him.
According to Ishaan, he ventured into the temple in search of his Hindu neighbor, who had left her home following a heated argument with her family, to persuade her to return home.
Hindu extremists openly display guns, distribute weapons in different states
During a Hindu religious procession organized by Hindu militant group Bajrang Dal, Hindu extremists openly displayed guns while marching through the streets of Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh. Meanwhile, in Gujarat state’s Jamnagar, the militant groups Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal distributed sharp-edged tridents among over 100 Hindu extremists.
The growing weaponization of violent Hindu supremacists has become an increasingly dangerous threat to Muslims as violent anti-Muslim hate speech continues to be propagated throughout India.
Rise in attacks on Christians in India, up four times in 11 years
There have been 525 attacks against Christians in India just in the first eight months of 2023, not including incidents of anti-Christian crimes in Manipur, according to the United Christian Forum (UCF). This year will likely cross the violent record set in 2022, and in 2021 before that, proving 2023 “to be one of the most violent and difficult years the Christian community in India has ever seen,”stated UCF.
Vigilante violence against Muslims and Dalits has been accompanied by a sharp rise in attacks against Christians in India. These incidents include attacks on churches or prayer meetings, harassment of Christians, and false allegations pertaining to “forced conversions” of Hindus to Christianity.
In the 11 years between 2012 and 2022, the number of incidents recorded has gone up four times. The first big jump was in 2016, with 247 incidents. The next jump was in 2021, which saw 505 incidents recorded. This rose further to 599 in 2022.
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