The Crossbill Team
State institutions were involved in more than a third of the hate crimes against Muslims and Christians documented across India during the first nine months of 2026, either through direct action or failure to intervene, according to two reports released by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) on Tuesday (November 10).
The reports recorded 322 hate crime incidents between January and September, resulting in 54 deaths, of which 21 occurred at the hands of the police or the army.
The accompanying Hate Speech Tracker documented 83 instances of hate speech by 57 speakers across at least 16 states. Thirty-three of these speeches were delivered by people holding public office, including chief ministers, a deputy chief minister and other political representatives.
The Hate Crime Tracker covered 24 states and Union Territories between January 1 and September 30. APCR clarified that its findings represent reported incidents rather than a comprehensive count of all hate crimes. Around 60 of the 322 entries are still awaiting verification, and the final figures could undergo minor changes.
The reports highlight the involvement of state agencies in 119 incidents, accounting for approximately 37% of the total. Police personnel were involved in 81 of these cases. Of the 21 deaths attributed to state actors, 12 occurred in alleged police or army encounters, while nine people died in custody or prison.
Among those killed in alleged encounters were brothers Zeeshan and Gulfam, carpenters from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh. They were killed in separate encounters in Ghaziabad on March 1 and 3, days after being named as suspects in a stabbing case.
Nine others died in custody or prison, including 70-year-old Zaheer Shaikh, who died in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a day after being arrested by the state police over alleged cow slaughter.
“If my sons committed a crime, they should have been arrested and taken to court,” the brothers’ father, Buniyad Ali, was quoted as saying in the APCR report.
Anish, a 34-year-old vegetable-market worker, also died in Delhi Police custody. “My son was completely fine when he left home. Police beat him to death,” his mother is quoted as saying by APCR.
Despite these deaths, the report found that no police officer or army personnel had been charged in connection with any of the 21 fatalities. An inquiry or first information report (FIR) was ordered in only four cases.
In Zaheer Shaikh's case, the Supreme Court had to intervene to ensure the registration of a police case, while the FIR did not name any suspect.
The report also points to a pattern in which criminal proceedings were initiated against victims rather than those accused of attacking them. Of the 108 incidents in which FIRs were registered, 40, or 37%, were filed against the victims. Uttar Pradesh accounted for 21 of these cases.
In one incident in Surat, Gujarat, a cattle raid involving police personnel and civilians resulted in the arrest of 22 Muslim men. In Assam, three young men were jailed for creating a WhatsApp group to organise a protest, despite having approached the police for permission.
“People from other communities are not being arrested. But we are Muslims,” the fathers of the three men are quoted as saying.
The report further documents demolitions and evictions despite the Supreme Court's 2024 guidelines regulating such actions. These include the demolition of a century-old mosque within the Saharanpur Collectorate in Uttar Pradesh and the eviction of 73 Muslim families in Goalpara, Assam, with just 24 hours' notice.
Religious festivals, political developments and processions accounted for a significant proportion of the recorded violence. Ramzan, Holi, Ram Navami, the West Bengal Assembly election results, Bakr Eid and the Kanwar Yatra together were associated with 187 of the 322 incidents and 28 of the 54 deaths.
Meat and cattle emerged as the most common triggers, accounting for approximately one in four incidents and 11 deaths. In West Bengal, APCR's fact-finding exercise documented 34 incidents across eight districts in the four days following the election results.
The report found that the 40 incidents associated with Muslim festivals largely involved restrictions and intimidation, with none resulting in fatalities. In comparison, the 21 incidents linked to Hindu festivals and processions included two killings.
The accountability gap was particularly evident in killings involving mobs, vigilantes and individuals. Of the 54 deaths recorded, 33 resulted from attacks by mobs, individuals, vigilantes or small groups, while the remaining 21 involved state actors.
Examining 30 fatal incidents involving non-state actors, APCR found that all the main accused had been arrested in only 10 cases. In nine incidents, some accused were arrested while others remained at large, while no arrests were reported in the remaining 11 cases. Consequently, in at least 20 of the 30 killings, some or all of those responsible had not been arrested.
In at least five cases, the police allegedly delayed registering complaints or initially acted against the victims. Azeem, a pickup driver who was beaten into a coma by participants in the Kanwar Yatra, was himself charged with attempted murder before his alleged attackers were arrested.
The report also records the killing of Saikun Khan, a 40-year-old farmer from Alwar, Rajasthan, on September 24. According to the report, a man crushed his head with a stone outside the Baroda Meo police station. A villager said the attacker shouted: “Today I have killed one m***a, now I will kill more.” The police described the accused as mentally disturbed and denied any religious motive.
The Hate Speech Tracker raises further concerns over the growing involvement of political office-holders in inflammatory rhetoric. Of the 83 speeches documented, 33 were delivered by people holding public office. Eleven were attributed to chief ministers or a deputy chief minister, including Adityanath, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Pushkar Singh Dhami, Suvendu Adhikari and Keshav Prasad Maurya.
The report also includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi's March 14 speech in Kolkata, in which he referred to 'infiltrators' changing Bengal's demography. Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also cited for making two promises in March to remove 'infiltrators'. The report does not include responses from the individuals named.
Of the 83 speeches, 37 allegedly called for violence or urged Hindus to arm themselves. Nearly 50 of the speeches and video clips were attributed to around a dozen individuals, seven of whom held public office. The police registered just five FIRs in connection with these speeches, and none of the 12 individuals was arrested.
Only six of the 83 speeches resulted in FIRs, with two involving legislator T. Raja Singh following complaints by Muslim citizens. The only arrests recorded in the tracker were of three Hindu Raksha Dal members for painting anti-Islam graffiti.
The report also examined compliance with the Supreme Court's directions in Shaheen Abdulla v. Union of India. In October 2022, the court directed police in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to register hate speech cases without waiting for complaints.
The order was extended to all states in April 2023. However, APCR found only one FIR described as suo motu in 2026, registered in Seoni Malwa in Madhya Pradesh.
“An FIR that is never followed by an arrest or charge sheet does not stop speech,” the report says.
A separate section examines the communal mobilisation following the March 4 Holi clash in Uttam Nagar, west Delhi, in which 26-year-old Tarun died following a dispute between two neighbouring families in a JJ Colony. Delhi Police arrested members of one family, including two minors, and invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act because Tarun belonged to a Dalit community. APCR noted that there was no dispute over the killing and that the accused were arrested promptly.
However, the incident was subsequently used to mobilise people from outside the neighbourhood. Within days, men from Dehradun, Meerut and Raebareli were addressing gatherings in the streets of Uttam Nagar.
APCR analysed 110 video clips related to the incident and found that 60 called for the killing, shooting or 'encounter' of innocent Muslim residents, while 23 demanded the demolition of Muslim homes or mosques.
“Arresting four people is no use. We want Yogi ji’s model – encounter them,” said one unidentified speaker on March 7. On March 8, Lalit Sharma, identified as the Uttarakhand state president of the Hindu Raksha Dal, said, “Either the police shoot them, or we will not let their Eid happen.”
The report identifies this as a significant development in the nature of hate speech in 2026, with speakers increasingly directing demands for extrajudicial violence towards the state. Of the 110 clips examined, 79 were posted on Instagram.
On March 19, the Delhi High Court directed the police to ensure a 'peaceful and dignified' Eid following a petition filed by residents through APCR's lawyers. The police informed the court that around 800 personnel had been deployed. Eid prayers on March 21 passed without violence.
“Prevention worked for one day,” the report says, adding that it could not find any FIR registered against the speakers responsible for the Uttam Nagar hate speeches.
At the programme accompanying the release of the reports, speakers raised concerns over the increasing normalisation of hate and the role of state institutions in enabling it.
Advocate Fawaz Shaheen described a shift from hate crime as planned, structural violence to “a regular method of conducting politics”, APCR said in a statement accompanying the reports.
Sayed Aqsa, lead researcher of Hate Crimes, said state institutions contributed to the spread of hate speech and violence by refusing to register FIRs or remaining passive during violent incidents. She distinguished between instances in which the state failed to act and those in which it directly participated in the violence.
Journalist Nidheesh Tyagi said the state was either complicit or incompetent and, referring to the prime minister, argued that he could have stopped these crimes if he wanted to. Political activist John Dayal said hate speech was not ordinary conversation but something that ultimately led to violence. Syeda Hameed expressed concern over the harassment faced by people documenting hate crimes.
APCR called for accountability for state officials, effective implementation of the Supreme Court's directions on hate speech and stronger protection for individuals and organisations documenting violations. The reports argue that the failure to investigate attacks, prosecute perpetrators and prevent inflammatory public speeches has allowed hate and violence to persist with little consequence.
The reports recorded 322 hate crime incidents between January and September, resulting in 54 deaths, of which 21 occurred at the hands of the police or the army.
The accompanying Hate Speech Tracker documented 83 instances of hate speech by 57 speakers across at least 16 states. Thirty-three of these speeches were delivered by people holding public office, including chief ministers, a deputy chief minister and other political representatives.
The Hate Crime Tracker covered 24 states and Union Territories between January 1 and September 30. APCR clarified that its findings represent reported incidents rather than a comprehensive count of all hate crimes. Around 60 of the 322 entries are still awaiting verification, and the final figures could undergo minor changes.
The reports highlight the involvement of state agencies in 119 incidents, accounting for approximately 37% of the total. Police personnel were involved in 81 of these cases. Of the 21 deaths attributed to state actors, 12 occurred in alleged police or army encounters, while nine people died in custody or prison.
Among those killed in alleged encounters were brothers Zeeshan and Gulfam, carpenters from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh. They were killed in separate encounters in Ghaziabad on March 1 and 3, days after being named as suspects in a stabbing case.
Nine others died in custody or prison, including 70-year-old Zaheer Shaikh, who died in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a day after being arrested by the state police over alleged cow slaughter.
“If my sons committed a crime, they should have been arrested and taken to court,” the brothers’ father, Buniyad Ali, was quoted as saying in the APCR report.
Anish, a 34-year-old vegetable-market worker, also died in Delhi Police custody. “My son was completely fine when he left home. Police beat him to death,” his mother is quoted as saying by APCR.
Despite these deaths, the report found that no police officer or army personnel had been charged in connection with any of the 21 fatalities. An inquiry or first information report (FIR) was ordered in only four cases.
In Zaheer Shaikh's case, the Supreme Court had to intervene to ensure the registration of a police case, while the FIR did not name any suspect.
The report also points to a pattern in which criminal proceedings were initiated against victims rather than those accused of attacking them. Of the 108 incidents in which FIRs were registered, 40, or 37%, were filed against the victims. Uttar Pradesh accounted for 21 of these cases.
In one incident in Surat, Gujarat, a cattle raid involving police personnel and civilians resulted in the arrest of 22 Muslim men. In Assam, three young men were jailed for creating a WhatsApp group to organise a protest, despite having approached the police for permission.
“People from other communities are not being arrested. But we are Muslims,” the fathers of the three men are quoted as saying.
The report further documents demolitions and evictions despite the Supreme Court's 2024 guidelines regulating such actions. These include the demolition of a century-old mosque within the Saharanpur Collectorate in Uttar Pradesh and the eviction of 73 Muslim families in Goalpara, Assam, with just 24 hours' notice.
Religious festivals, political developments and processions accounted for a significant proportion of the recorded violence. Ramzan, Holi, Ram Navami, the West Bengal Assembly election results, Bakr Eid and the Kanwar Yatra together were associated with 187 of the 322 incidents and 28 of the 54 deaths.
Meat and cattle emerged as the most common triggers, accounting for approximately one in four incidents and 11 deaths. In West Bengal, APCR's fact-finding exercise documented 34 incidents across eight districts in the four days following the election results.
The report found that the 40 incidents associated with Muslim festivals largely involved restrictions and intimidation, with none resulting in fatalities. In comparison, the 21 incidents linked to Hindu festivals and processions included two killings.
The accountability gap was particularly evident in killings involving mobs, vigilantes and individuals. Of the 54 deaths recorded, 33 resulted from attacks by mobs, individuals, vigilantes or small groups, while the remaining 21 involved state actors.
Examining 30 fatal incidents involving non-state actors, APCR found that all the main accused had been arrested in only 10 cases. In nine incidents, some accused were arrested while others remained at large, while no arrests were reported in the remaining 11 cases. Consequently, in at least 20 of the 30 killings, some or all of those responsible had not been arrested.
In at least five cases, the police allegedly delayed registering complaints or initially acted against the victims. Azeem, a pickup driver who was beaten into a coma by participants in the Kanwar Yatra, was himself charged with attempted murder before his alleged attackers were arrested.
The report also records the killing of Saikun Khan, a 40-year-old farmer from Alwar, Rajasthan, on September 24. According to the report, a man crushed his head with a stone outside the Baroda Meo police station. A villager said the attacker shouted: “Today I have killed one m***a, now I will kill more.” The police described the accused as mentally disturbed and denied any religious motive.
The Hate Speech Tracker raises further concerns over the growing involvement of political office-holders in inflammatory rhetoric. Of the 83 speeches documented, 33 were delivered by people holding public office. Eleven were attributed to chief ministers or a deputy chief minister, including Adityanath, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Pushkar Singh Dhami, Suvendu Adhikari and Keshav Prasad Maurya.
The report also includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi's March 14 speech in Kolkata, in which he referred to 'infiltrators' changing Bengal's demography. Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also cited for making two promises in March to remove 'infiltrators'. The report does not include responses from the individuals named.
Of the 83 speeches, 37 allegedly called for violence or urged Hindus to arm themselves. Nearly 50 of the speeches and video clips were attributed to around a dozen individuals, seven of whom held public office. The police registered just five FIRs in connection with these speeches, and none of the 12 individuals was arrested.
Only six of the 83 speeches resulted in FIRs, with two involving legislator T. Raja Singh following complaints by Muslim citizens. The only arrests recorded in the tracker were of three Hindu Raksha Dal members for painting anti-Islam graffiti.
The report also examined compliance with the Supreme Court's directions in Shaheen Abdulla v. Union of India. In October 2022, the court directed police in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to register hate speech cases without waiting for complaints.
The order was extended to all states in April 2023. However, APCR found only one FIR described as suo motu in 2026, registered in Seoni Malwa in Madhya Pradesh.
“An FIR that is never followed by an arrest or charge sheet does not stop speech,” the report says.
A separate section examines the communal mobilisation following the March 4 Holi clash in Uttam Nagar, west Delhi, in which 26-year-old Tarun died following a dispute between two neighbouring families in a JJ Colony. Delhi Police arrested members of one family, including two minors, and invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act because Tarun belonged to a Dalit community. APCR noted that there was no dispute over the killing and that the accused were arrested promptly.
However, the incident was subsequently used to mobilise people from outside the neighbourhood. Within days, men from Dehradun, Meerut and Raebareli were addressing gatherings in the streets of Uttam Nagar.
APCR analysed 110 video clips related to the incident and found that 60 called for the killing, shooting or 'encounter' of innocent Muslim residents, while 23 demanded the demolition of Muslim homes or mosques.
“Arresting four people is no use. We want Yogi ji’s model – encounter them,” said one unidentified speaker on March 7. On March 8, Lalit Sharma, identified as the Uttarakhand state president of the Hindu Raksha Dal, said, “Either the police shoot them, or we will not let their Eid happen.”
The report identifies this as a significant development in the nature of hate speech in 2026, with speakers increasingly directing demands for extrajudicial violence towards the state. Of the 110 clips examined, 79 were posted on Instagram.
On March 19, the Delhi High Court directed the police to ensure a 'peaceful and dignified' Eid following a petition filed by residents through APCR's lawyers. The police informed the court that around 800 personnel had been deployed. Eid prayers on March 21 passed without violence.
“Prevention worked for one day,” the report says, adding that it could not find any FIR registered against the speakers responsible for the Uttam Nagar hate speeches.
At the programme accompanying the release of the reports, speakers raised concerns over the increasing normalisation of hate and the role of state institutions in enabling it.
Advocate Fawaz Shaheen described a shift from hate crime as planned, structural violence to “a regular method of conducting politics”, APCR said in a statement accompanying the reports.
Sayed Aqsa, lead researcher of Hate Crimes, said state institutions contributed to the spread of hate speech and violence by refusing to register FIRs or remaining passive during violent incidents. She distinguished between instances in which the state failed to act and those in which it directly participated in the violence.
Journalist Nidheesh Tyagi said the state was either complicit or incompetent and, referring to the prime minister, argued that he could have stopped these crimes if he wanted to. Political activist John Dayal said hate speech was not ordinary conversation but something that ultimately led to violence. Syeda Hameed expressed concern over the harassment faced by people documenting hate crimes.
APCR called for accountability for state officials, effective implementation of the Supreme Court's directions on hate speech and stronger protection for individuals and organisations documenting violations. The reports argue that the failure to investigate attacks, prosecute perpetrators and prevent inflammatory public speeches has allowed hate and violence to persist with little consequence.
Comments (0)
Leave a Comment