IAMC highlights India’s violence against Christians, Muslims at International Religious Freedom Summit

Washington, D.C. (February 6, 2026) – The Indian American Muslim Council’s (IAMC) Associate Media Director, Safa Ahmed, stated that India must be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for egregious violations of religious freedom at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit in Washington, D.C., the world’s largest gathering on religious freedom. 

Speaking at a breakout panel for the Summit’s Awareness track, Ahmed covered years of human rights abuses and religious persecution against Indian Muslims and Christians, highlighting the gang-rape of Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the passage of anti-conversion laws in multiple Indian states, attacks on Christian prayer services, demolition of mosques, detention of prisoners of conscience, the Modi government’s failure to address ethnic violence in Manipur, and the collapse of democratic institutions. 

“Prime Minister Modi’s government operates under the ideology known as Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, which in very simple terms means that these people do not believe that India should be a secular democracy with the right to religious freedom, as it has been since its inception,” she said. “That is why right now, Freedom House ranks India as a partly free country, not as a free democracy.”

When asked about how reporting on India’s human rights abuses becomes complicated by the country’s perception as the world’s largest democracy, Ahmed responded, “I think the short answer here is, does India see itself as the world’s largest democracy? From the perspective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, absolutely not…. The long and short of that question is, if Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can be designated as [Countries of Particular Concern], despite being American partners, why not India, in light of all of this evidence?”