Hundreds of anti-Muslim abuses recorded in India’s UP in two months

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — At least four Muslims were killed in suspected hate crimes, 70 were shot and wounded by police, 152 were arbitrarily arrested or detained and 34 Muslim properties were demolished in India’s Uttar Pradesh during a two-month period, according to a new report documenting a broad pattern of anti-Muslim abuses in the state.

The South Asia Justice Campaign (SAJC) recorded the incidents between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30 in the first edition of Election Watch: Uttar Pradesh, 2027, launched to track violations against minorities and threats to electoral integrity as the BJP-ruled state approaches elections next year.

The four suspected hate-crime killings during August and September brought the number of Muslims killed in such attacks in Uttar Pradesh this year to nine, already surpassing the seven documented during all of 2025.

Among those killed was a 20-year-old Muslim man beaten to death after men objected to his cousin wearing a burqa.

A Muslim schoolteacher was shot dead in another case by a man who invoked “love jihad,” a Hindutva conspiracy theory alleging that Muslim men deliberately pursue Hindu women to convert them to Islam.

Police violence accounted for another major category documented by the monitor.

At least 70 Muslims were shot and wounded in so-called “half-encounters” across 27 of Uttar Pradesh’s 75 districts. The term refers to police operations in which suspects are typically shot in the leg before being arrested. Fifty-two of those shot were accused of cow slaughter or cattle theft.

A Muslim man was separately shot dead by police in Shamli on Aug. 5.

SAJC also documented at least 152 Muslims arbitrarily arrested or detained during the two months, including seven women held in cases involving meat and men jailed after criticizing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath online.

At least 16 other Muslims were assaulted in 14 incidents. One victim was a 12-year-old boy attacked after refusing to chant “Jai Shri Ram,” a political battle cry of the Hindutva movement that became nationally prominent during the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign culminating in the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid.

No alleged attacker was reported arrested in any of those 14 assault cases, according to SAJC. In two cases, police instead took action against the victims.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric from senior political figures accompanied the violence. SAJC documented at least 21 hate-speech incidents, 10 involving Yogi Adityanath, a radical Hindu monk and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

The report said Adityanath portrayed political opponents as “Babur’s followers,” invoking the Muslim founder of the Mughal Empire.

Uttar Pradesh’s deputy chief minister separately claimed that anyone educated in a madrasa develops a mindset “like that of a terrorist,” while a state minister declared that “we do not need Muslim votes.” No officeholder faced reported action.

Authorities also razed at least 34 Muslim homes, businesses and religious structures in nine demolition episodes during the two-month period.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state and home to more than one-fifth of the country’s Muslims, making developments there particularly significant for India’s roughly 200 million-strong Muslim minority.

SAJC said it plans to document abuses month by month as campaigning for the 2027 election intensifies, with the monitoring intended to provide evidence for early intervention and prevention.