Indian police parade Muslim youths in public shaming during Milad procession
Police in northern India have sparked outrage after parading Muslim youths during Eid Milad-un-Nabi processions in Uttar Pradesh
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Police in northern India have sparked outrage after parading Muslim youths during Eid Milad-un-Nabi processions in Uttar Pradesh, forcing them into acts of public humiliation that rights defenders say reflect deepening state-backed discrimination.
The September 6 incident took place in Firozabad, a city in India’s most populous state, home to more than 200 million people and governed by Hindu nationalist monk Yogi Adityanath of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Authorities detained 30 Muslim youths, including minors, for allegedly straying from the designated route of a religious procession. Videos released by police showed the boys forced to hold their ears as an apology — a gesture widely associated with public shaming — while being filmed and photographed. Their names and faces were later circulated online, in what critics called a form of “state-sponsored humiliation.”
Civil rights groups said the spectacle exposed double standards in law enforcement. “For the mere ‘crime’ of straying from the route of a procession, photos and videos of these boys are being made to humiliate them,” said opposition leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who contrasted the treatment with earlier incidents in which Hindu nationalist mobs attacked Muslim-owned shops without similar repercussions.
The arrests were made under provisions of India’s new criminal code, with motorcycles seized in raids across several police stations. Some detainees remain in custody, while others have been released on bail. Advocate Sagheer Ahmed, representing families of the youths, said many of those detained were madrasa students who had simply taken another road after the procession to avoid traffic.
Human rights defenders linked the Firozabad crackdown to earlier attempts by Adityanath’s government to “name and shame” Muslims. During the 2019–20 protests against India’s controversial citizenship law, Uttar Pradesh authorities erected public hoardings with protesters’ personal details — a practice later struck down by the Allahabad High Court as unconstitutional and questioned by the Supreme Court.
“This is part of a larger trend of policing Muslims through fear and spectacle,” said Nadeem Khan of the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights. “Forcing children to apologize on camera violates Article 21 of the Constitution and stigmatizes them in society.”
Analysts say the crackdown highlights how Hindu nationalist politics in Uttar Pradesh has turned ordinary aspects of Muslim life into sites of surveillance and intimidation. For global observers, the Firozabad incident underscores the growing erosion of civil liberties in the world’s largest democracy, where a minority population of more than 200 million Muslims faces increasing marginalization.
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