IAMC Weekly India Human Rights Monitor (September 25, 2026)

This Week at a Glance 

This week, an investigation revealed that two of India’s three election commissioners objected at least 14 times to decisions in the nationwide voter roll revision that has removed more than 130 million names. A new report documented at least 60 hate crimes against Christians in West Bengal in just four months. A Muslim biryani seller was assaulted in Lucknow over beef allegations, authorities partly demolished a mosque in Delhi overnight, and Jammu and Kashmir pulled nearly 5,000 books from college libraries. Veteran Muslim leaders completed four years in pretrial detention. Elsewhere, a BJP lawmaker issued a rape threat against Muslim women, Mumbai police shut down Umar Khalid and Gaza solidarity events, West Bengal targeted a Muslim police officer and an independent news outlet.

 

Top Stories

Election commissioners objected 14 times to voter roll decisions, opposition demands chief’s resignation

Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months, including four times in a single day, to decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that they said were taken without their knowledge, an Indian Express investigation revealed. Their objections covered the registration of new voters, the deletion and restoration of names, and the custody and security of voter databases, in an exercise that has already removed more than 130 million names from rolls across the country.

 

At least 60 hate crimes against Christians in West Bengal in four months: Report

India Hate Lab documented at least 60 hate crimes against Christians across 13 districts of West Bengal between May 13 and September 20, after the BJP came to power in the state for the first time. These included 52 raids on private prayer meetings, homes, and churches, and eight incidents of physical assault, mob violence, or vandalism, most of them justified through allegations of religious conversion.

 

 

 

Muslim biryani seller assaulted in Lucknow, Hindu militants target meat sellers in UP

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, three young men beat 40-year-old biryani seller Rizwan with belts, kicked him, and threatened to kill him after accusing him of carrying beef, leaving him with head and facial injuries. In Prayagraj, Hindu militants from Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal accused 12 Muslim meat sellers of selling beef, a charge the licensed shopkeepers denied. Police registered a case against the sellers and promised to arrest them within 24 hours.

 

 

Parts of mosque and adjoining homes demolished overnight in Delhi

Bulldozers demolished parts of the roughly 30-year-old Madina Masjid and several adjoining homes overnight in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh, under heavy police and paramilitary deployment, to clear land for a road-widening project. The mosque committee said the matter was still before the court and that it was given too little time to seek legal remedy.

 

 

 

Nearly 5,000 books pulled from Jammu and Kashmir college libraries

The Jammu and Kashmir government told the legislative assembly that it had withdrawn nearly 5,000 books from college libraries since July, after screening about 2.18 million titles for material allegedly glorifying militancy, hurting religious sentiments, or harming national interest. The government has not published a list of the removed books or said when the screening will end, and critics warn the exercise will restrict academic inquiry into Kashmir’s history.

 

 

 

 

Veteran Muslim leaders complete four years in prison as medical bail denied

Former Popular Front of India (PFI) chairman E. Abubacker, journalist and rights activist Professor P. Koya, and former PFI leaders OMA Salam and E.M. Abdul Rahiman completed four years in prison as undertrials, among dozens of Muslim leaders arrested in the 2022 crackdown that preceded the government’s ban on the organisation. The People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) raised concern over the repeated denial of medical bail to the 74-year-old Abubacker, who suffers from cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and coronary artery disease, and had most of his stomach removed in surgery.

 

Hate crimes and discrimination in India

This week, BJP lawmaker Rameshwar Sharma issued a rape threat against Muslim women. In Mumbai, police pressured two venues into cancelling a private screening of a documentary on activist Umar Khalid, who has been jailed without trial for six years, and detained three pro-Palestine activists, searching one woman volunteer’s home for more than nine hours without a warrant, after they flew kites in solidarity with the children of Gaza. In West Bengal, Indian Police Service officer Bushra Bano was transferred a day after a Hindu extremist group complained that she said “Assalamu Alaikum,” “Inshallah,” and “Jazakallah” in a motivational video for civil service aspirants. State police also filed a case against independent news outlet Maktoob over its reporting on the exclusion of Muslim officers from Amit Shah’s official meetings, and demanded login and device data for its X account. In Gujarat, police booked 21 farmers for burning effigies of Modi and Shah during a months-long protest against Adani-linked power transmission lines being built across their farmland.

 

Defender of the Week

This week, we’re spotlighting Ravi Nair, an independent investigative journalist who has spent years scrutinising the business practices of the Adani Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, whose founder Gautam Adani is widely seen as close to Prime Minister Modi. In February, a Gujarat court convicted Nair of criminal defamation over a series of social media posts on the company and sentenced him to one year in prison, a sentence suspended while he appealed. He was jailed on September 17 after missing a single appeal hearing, and remained behind bars for a week as the Gujarat High Court granted Adani Enterprises more time to respond to his plea and declined him interim relief. His case remains a stark reminder of how criminal defamation law is being used to silence journalists who hold powerful corporations to account.

 

IAMC in Action

• IAMC demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar following the Indian Express revelations, and called for an independent constitutional inquiry under the President of India into the conduct of the SIR, along with a freeze on all deletions and the restoration of every eligible voter wrongly removed. Read our statement here.
• IAMC marked the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Yusuf Meher Ali, the socialist leader who coined the slogans “Simon Go Back” and “Quit India” and became one of Bombay’s youngest mayors while imprisoned by the British. Read more here.
• IAMC also highlighted the legacy of Pir Muhammad Munis, the Bihar journalist whose reporting on the suffering of indigo farmers laid the groundwork for Gandhi’s 1917 Champaran movement, and whom colonial authorities branded a “rogue journalist.” Read more here.