IAMC Weekly India Human Rights Monitor (March 27, 2026)

This Week at a Glance 

This week, India slipped five places on the V-Dem Institute’s Liberal Democracy Index – while thousands of Muslim voters in West Bengal were marked “under adjudication” and removed from electoral rolls. The Gujarat Assembly’s passage of the Uniform Civil Code Bill further fuelled concerns about the erosion of constitutionally protected Muslim personal laws. Across the country, the end of Ramadan was marred by a surge in anti-Muslim violence, with hate crimes reported from multiple states. In Kashmir, separatist leader Asiya Andrabi was sentenced to life imprisonment under UAPA, even as a separate court acquitted two Kashmiri youth after seven years, citing serious doubts in the prosecution’s case.

 

Top Stories

Thousands of Muslim Voters Marked ‘Under Adjudication’, Names Deleted in West Bengal

Outrage erupted in West Bengal following the release of the first supplementary list of “Under Adjudication” (SIR) voters by the Election Commission, as the vast majority of voters excluded from the rolls belong to the Muslim community. In Raiganj, one booth reported the exclusion of 115 Muslim voters out of 116. In Basirhat, all 340 Muslim voters from a single booth were removed. Notably, even a Booth Level Officer (BLO), Shafiul Alam, along with his family members, found their names deleted.

 

 

 

 

Gujarat passes Uniform Civil Code Bill amid Opposition protests

The Gujarat Assembly passed the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, which aims to create a common legal framework governing marriage, divorce, succession, and live-in relationships irrespective of religion. The UCC has been a long-standing demand of India’s Hindu extremists, who have rejected the personal laws that India’s Muslims have been constitutionally allowed to observe and practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

India Remains an Electoral Autocracy, Slips Five Places on Liberal Democracy Index: V-Dem Report

According to a report by the V-Dem Institute of the University of Gothenburg, India is among the most populous electoral autocracies in the world – a category it entered in 2017. Out of 179 countries, India ranks 105 on the liberal democracy index, having slipped down from 100 last year. The report lambasted “the ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Modi” for derailing democracy by “deteriorating freedom of expression and independence of the media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, and attacks on civil society and the opposition.”

 

 

Indian Muslims Face Several Several Attacks during Ramadan

Across Ramadan 2026, multiple incidents of violence and targeted attacks against Muslims have been reported in Varanasi, Pune, Bhopal, Lucknow, Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Haryana, and Meghalaya. Arrests and hate crimes followed religious gatherings, with communal tensions intensified by viral videos, inflammatory speeches, and lack of prompt action in several cases.

 

 

 

Delhi court gives life term to Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi

A Delhi court sentenced Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi to life imprisonment, while two of her associates, Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen, were sentenced to 30 years in prison under UAPA. The court observed that while there was no direct evidence that the convicts used violence, their actions eulogised militants and indirectly promoted violence. Kashmiri leaders including Mehbooba Mufti have urged authorities to reconsider the sentence on humanitarian grounds.

 

Hate crimes and discrimination in India

This week, in Assam’s Kokrajhar, Muslim homes were vandalized by a mob following rumours that their owners possessed cow meat, while in Kamrup’s Azara, authorities demolished nearly 500 houses belonging to Muslim families. Two Muslim students in Delhi’s Mustafabad were brutally assaulted by Hindu extremist men after their board exams, while in a separate incident, two Muslim brothers in Assam’s South Salmara–Mankachar district were shot by security personnel while fishing within Indian territory and remain in critical condition. A teenage boy in Chhattisgarh’s Champa was assaulted and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” on camera, while the Indian release of The Voice of Hind Rajab, an Oscar-nominated film, was stalled by authorities over concerns about diplomatic fallout with Israel.

 

Resistance & Organizing

“No legal basis”: UN Body terms Umar Khalid’s imprisonment ‘arbitrary’

After more than five years in prison, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) experts have determined that the human rights activist Umar Khalid’s detention is arbitrary under four categories of arbitrary detention established by the UN body. The UNWGAD concluded that Umar Khalid’s deprivation of liberty results from “the exercise of his rights to freedom of expression, assembly, association and participation in public affairs.”

 

 

 

 

Muslim political parties protest against UCC in Ahmedabad; detained, released later

Soon after the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill was passed in the Gujarat Assembly, workers of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) staged protests in Ahmedabad.

 

 

 

 

 

Defenders of the Week

This week, we’re featuring Sharjeel Imam, a Jawaharlal Nehru University research scholar and prominent face of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) movement, was arrested and jailed under draconian laws including sedition and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). He walked out of jail after nearly six years after a Delhi court granted him interim bail for 10 days to attend his brother’s wedding and look after his ailing mother.

 

Voices from the Ground 

“The sentencing of Asiya Andrabi sahiba and her colleagues Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen is a matter of  concern. Given the years already spent in detention, the sentence stands out for its severity and harshness . We hope that in line with democratic principles, and on humanitarian grounds their case be reviewed with sensitivity and compassion, especially considering Asiya ji’s age and health and they be released.”

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Kashmiri Leader

IAMC in Action

• IAMC’s Associate Media Director Safa Ahmed was featured on a discussion panel during a book talk for Sam Dalrymple’s newly-released book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia at the University of Texas, Dallas. Learn more about Sam’s work here.  

What to Watch Next Week

• Our upcoming episode of Beyond the Taj will feature a conversation with writer and journalist Tom Verde, who will be joining us to share the stories of two historic Indian Muslim queens. Follow Beyond the Taj on Spotify and Apple, and subscribe to IAMC’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss it!