Report warns anti-Muslim killings are surging across India
Tracker says 44 Muslims have been killed in India so far this year, warning of rising violence by both security forces and Hindu extremists
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — India is on course to record its deadliest year for anti-Muslim killings since a leading human rights monitor began tracking such violence in 2022, according to a new report.
The report says 44 Muslims were killed during the first seven months of 2026 by security forces and Hindu extremist attackers.
The findings, published by the South Asia Justice Campaign’s India Persecution Tracker, documented a sharp escalation in violence between May and July, when 25 Muslims were killed.
Fifteen of those deaths were attributed to police or other state security personnel, while 10 were linked to Hindu extremist assailants in what the report described as religiously motivated attacks.
Beyond the killings, the report alleges an expanding pattern of state action targeting Muslim communities through arrests, property demolitions, custodial deaths, and forced expulsions near India’s border with Bangladesh.
It says more than 3,000 Muslim homes, businesses, and religious buildings have been demolished nationwide this year, including at least 23 mosques and other Islamic religious sites destroyed in less than two months across six states.
The report also points to mass detentions following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, where more than 2,500 people were reportedly detained within 48 hours, as well as continuing expulsions in the northeastern state of Assam.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented Indian security personnel allegedly forcing families, including children, across the Bangladesh border through gaps in border fencing during nighttime operations.
According to the tracker, anti-Muslim rhetoric from senior political leaders has continued to reinforce discrimination against the country’s Muslim minority.
The report cites warnings from United Nations special rapporteurs that official references to alleged “infiltrators” risk portraying Indian Muslims as foreigners and could amount to incitement to discrimination under international human rights standards.
The report also argues that legal and administrative measures adopted in several states have increasingly affected Muslim communities.
It cites expanded property demolitions, changes to citizenship verification procedures, new civil laws overriding aspects of Muslim personal law, and restrictions affecting mosques, Islamic schools, and cattle slaughter in different parts of the country.
Despite documenting widespread abuses, the report highlighted one significant legal development: an Indian judge sentenced 14 Hindu cow vigilantes to life imprisonment for the lynching of a Muslim man, describing the ruling as a rare instance of accountability in communal violence. The judge was later provided police protection after reportedly receiving threats.
The South Asia Justice Campaign said the findings reflect what it describes as a broader pattern in which violence, official policy, and political rhetoric increasingly converge to marginalize India’s Muslim minority.
The organization added that UN human rights experts have raised growing concerns over the country’s treatment of minorities, protest movements, and citizenship-related policies.
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