At least 50 Muslims in India killed extrajudicially in 2025: Report

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — At least 50 Muslims were killed in extrajudicial incidents across India in 2025, including 27 deaths attributed to Hindu extremist violence and dozens linked to police and other state security forces, according to new documentation compiled by a regional human rights group.

The findings are detailed in data released by the South Asia Justice Campaign, whose India Persecution Tracker documents patterns of unlawful killings, custodial deaths, mob violence and other serious abuses targeting religious minorities.

Of the total deaths recorded, 23 Muslims were killed in incidents involving police, armed forces or other state security personnel. Two of the victims were children. The tracker also documented two cases in which Muslims died by suicide following sustained violence or harassment by Hindu extremist groups.

Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir accounted for the highest number of killings linked to state action. At least eight Kashmiri Muslim civilians were killed during militarized raids, detentions and armed actions by state forces in 2025, amid allegations of custodial torture, enforced disappearances, staged “encounter” killings, and systematic cover-ups by authorities.

In Uttar Pradesh, at least six Muslims were killed in extrajudicial police shootings during the year. The report also notes that dozens more were seriously injured in deliberate police shootings in which victims survived with permanent or life-altering injuries — a pattern widely described by rights groups as punitive use of force rather than lawful policing.

Across four additional states, at least five Muslims died in police custody or shortly after detention, with families alleging torture, denial of medical care and other forms of abuse. Other deaths occurred during eviction drives and law-enforcement actions involving the use of lethal force, including the killing of two Muslim children.

Among the most severe cases cited, a one-and-a-half-month-old Muslim infant was crushed to death during a police raid on her family’s home in Rajasthan in March. In November, Sahil Ansari, a 14-year-old Muslim boy, was shot dead by an off-duty Central Industrial Security Force constable during a wedding procession in Delhi.

The report attributes 27 killings in 2025 to Hindu extremist violence. Nine involved organized cow-vigilante groups or mob attacks following accusations related to cattle theft. 

At least five victims — four Muslims and one Dalit — were murdered after being labelled “Bangladeshis” or “illegal immigrants,” against the backdrop of what the authors describe as an increasingly xenophobic campaign targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Beyond killings, the tracker documents arbitrary arrests, large-scale expulsions and forced removals of Bengali-speaking Muslims, as well as at least 26 episodes of targeted mass violence against Muslims across 13 states. Hundreds of additional non-fatal assaults and religiously motivated hate crimes were also recorded.

The documentation also notes that other marginalized communities were affected by state violence. In Chhattisgarh, security forces claimed to have killed more than 275 people described as Maoists during armed operations in 2025 — many of whom, according to local accounts cited in the report, are alleged to have been Adivasi (tribal) civilians.

The findings mark a sustained increase compared with previous years. The tracker recorded 21 extrajudicial killings of Muslims by state actors in 2024 and 20 in 2023.

The report warns that persecution of religious minorities in India has become increasingly routinized, marked by both scale and brutality, and cautions that the continued normalization of lethal state force and extremist violence has placed minorities at growing and persistent risk.