Hindu extremist shoots Hindu teenager dead, mistaking him as Muslim
In Haryana Faridabad, a 19-year-old student, Aryan Mishra, was chased and shot dead by cow vigilantes from the Hindu militant group Bajrang Dal, who mistook him for being a Muslim and allegedly a “cow smuggler.”
“[The accused] said he thought my son was a Muslim. Now he regrets killing a Brahmin (upper-caste Hindu),” said Mishra’s father. The incident comes days after a 22-year-old Muslim migrant worker was beaten to death by Hindu extremists in Haryana over accusations of consuming beef.
28 Muslims in Assam declared “foreigners,” sent to detention center
Police in BJP-ruled Assam’s Barpeta sent 28 Muslims to a detention center after declaring them “non-citizens.” All the 28 people — 19 men and nine women — are Bengali-speaking Muslims. A video shows family members crying and hugging each other before being taken away, as some members of the same family were declared “foreigners” while others were not.
Two months ago, the Assam government had asked the state’s border police not to forward the cases of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain, and Christian people who entered India “illegally” before 2014 to the Foreigners Tribunals, citing the Citizenship Amendment Act, an anti-Muslim citizenship law.
Muslim singer arrested in Assam for song about discrimination towards Muslims
In BJP-ruled Assam, a 31-year-old Muslim singer, Altaf Hussain, was arrested for a protest song he released last month. Through his lyrics, Hussain had drawn attention to the discrimination faced by Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam.
The lyrics aimed to highlight the plight of Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam, particularly in the context of the ongoing campaign by nativist groups to drive them out of the region. Hussain pointed out that while individuals from all communities may commit crimes, it is predominantly Bengali Muslims who are targeted, often being falsely accused of being undocumented immigrants.
Muslims threatened with expulsion, shops attacked during rally in Uttarakhand
In far-right BJP-ruled Uttarakhand’s Chamoli, an anti-Muslim rally was held after a barber was accused of allegedly molesting a minor girl. The participants chanted anti-Muslim slogans, attacked Muslim shops, and issued an ultimatum for the removal of Muslims from the town.
Muslims in Uttarakhand have faced constant threats of expulsion from Hindu supremacists. Months prior, a trade body canceled the membership of 91 traders, mostly Muslims, and forced them to shut down their shops. Last year, in Purola, Hindu supremacist groups called for all Muslims to be expelled from the town, after an alleged elopement.
Police disrupt Christian prayer meetings over false allegations of forced conversion
In Bharatpur, Rajasthan, police stopped a Christian prayer meeting after Hindu supremacist groups accused the group of forcing Hindus to convert to Christianity. After an investigation, the police found the allegations to be untrue. In a similar incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli, police disrupted a Christian prayer meeting, falsely accusing them of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.
Attacks on Christians have become common under several Indian states’ draconian anti-conversion laws, which criminalize conversion away from Hinduism.
