Friday Night, October 3: The first clash

The unrest ignited around 1:30 a.m. on October 4, during the Durga idol immersion procession near Haathi Pokhari in the Dargha Bazar area, a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood known for its tight-knit interfaith community, as per Times of India. Residents objected to the loud music and provocative slogans, including repeated chants of “Jai Shri Ram,” accompanying the procession heading towards the Kathajodi river, as reported by India Today. Traditionally this slogan has no place during Durga Puja and has been perceived to be linked to an aggressive majoritarianism.

Minor verbal disagreements quickly escalated into violence. Stones and glass bottles were hurled from rooftops, injuring at least six people, including Deputy Commissioner of Police Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo, ANI reported. Local grocer Mohammad Asif told reporters that while the initial scuffle had been contained, “all of them were drunk. We pacified both groups, but it later escalated”, as per Hindustan Times. Rumours of Hindu fatalities circulating in the aftermath further inflamed passions, setting the stage for larger-scale clashes.

Six police personnel were injured in the initial violence, and six individuals from both communities were arrested, NDTV report states. The situation cast a pall over the city, reviving memories of past curfews, notably the last major shutdown during the Mandal Commission protests in 1991, as noted by former MLA Pravat Tripathy, according to Moneycontrol.

Sunday, October 5: VHP rally and widespread violence

Tensions further escalated on Sunday evening, October 5, when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) organised a large motorcycle rally—allegedly numbering over 2,000 participants on more than 1,000 bikes—to protest the earlier Dargha Bazar clashes, as per India Today. Authorities had denied permission for the rally, citing concerns over law and order, but the organizers proceeded, intending to pass through the sensitive Dargha Bazar area. The permission granted for the route of the VHP rally has been questioned by right-thinking citizens.

Initially, police allowed the rallyists to assemble near the area. However, once law enforcement attempted to redirect them, the rally escalated into rampage and vandalism. Protesters stormed a local mall, vandalized shops—including mutton stalls, food joints, and general stores—and torched roadside establishments. Stone-pelting and clashes with police followed, leaving 25 people injured, including eight police officers, according to Hindustan Times.

Videos circulating on social media before the internet suspension showed plumes of smoke rising over the narrow lanes of Dargha Bazar, with police in riot gear forming barricades amid screams and sirens, as per India Today.

Government Response: Curfew, internet suspension, and law enforcement measures

In the aftermath of Sunday’s violence, the Odisha government responded with stringent measures:

• A 36-hour curfew across 13 police station jurisdictions, including Dargha Bazar, Mangalabag, Cantonment, Purighat, Lal Bagh, Bidanasi, Markat Nagar, CDA Phase 2, Malgodam, Badambadi, Jagatpur, Bayalis Mouza, and Sadar (ANI).
• Internet and social media suspension from 7 p.m. on October 5 to 7 p.m. on October 6, covering the Cuttack Municipal Corporation, Cuttack Development Authority, and 42 adjacent Mauza areas, to prevent the spread of provocative content and rumours (NDTV).
• Continuous flag marches, drone surveillance, and enhanced patrolling across the city’s sensitive areas (PTI).

Additional Police Commissioner Narasingha Bhola confirmed that eight people had been arrested, with more under detention, and investigations involving CCTV and drone footage were ongoing, reported ANI. The authorities emphasised that arrests would follow “proper examination of evidence”.

Revenue Divisional Commissioner Guha Poonam Tapas Kumar issued a warning: “All people who have tried to take the law into their own hands will be booked… Anybody who has tried to damage the social fabric will be taken to task”, reported NDTV.

Monday, October 6: VHP bandh and a fragile peace

In response to the immersion violence, the VHP declared a 12-hour bandh on Monday, October 6. Under a heavy police presence, the bandh passed off peacefully, highlighting the effectiveness of the curfew and security measures, as reported by The Indian Express. Local officials noted that while the streets remained quiet, the city was grappling with fear and uncertainty, with residents reluctant to venture outdoors.

Mayor Subhas Singh underlined Cuttack’s “unique culture of Hindus and Muslims living as brothers for generations”, and called on all citizens to protect this communal harmony, as per NDTV. Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahatab, BJD Chief Naveen Patnaik, Congress MLA Sophia Firdous, and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan issued repeated appeals for peace, stressing that rumours and inflammatory social media posts must be avoided, reported Hindustan Times.

ANI provided that several injured individuals from Friday and Sunday, including Pintu Mahar, Mukesh Mahar, Subhashree Jena, and Sankar Biswal, were treated and discharged, with the police clarifying that no fatalities had occurred.

Background: Communal sensitivities in Odisha

While Cuttack has historically been a model of interfaith coexistence, Odisha has witnessed a rise in communal tensions in recent years. Notable incidents include:

• Attacks on Christians and harassment of nuns (SabrangIndia)
• Clashes during processions in urban centres like Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur, and Cuttack (Deccan Herald).
• Property damage and arson during festivals, often exacerbated by rumours, demographic shifts, and political tensions (Hindustan Times).

The 2008 Kandhamal riots represent the most severe anti-Christian violence, but even post-2023, Hindu-Muslim tensions have increased. In 2024 alone, Odisha recorded an 84% rise in communal riots, resulting in 13 deaths, primarily among Muslims, Moneycontrol reported. The 2025 Cuttack disturbances underscore the vulnerabilities of religious processions in multi-religious urban settings. Small disputes—such as objections to music, slogans, or immersion routes—can quickly escalate if rumours or political mobilizations intervene.

Current Situation: Towards restoration of peace

As of October 7, Cuttack remains under curfew, and internet services have been extended to 7 p.m. on the same day, as per NDTV. Flag marches and intensive patrolling continue. Authorities have stressed that public cooperation is critical for restoring full normalcy.

Civil society leaders and residents expressed hope that Cuttack’s legacy of bhaichara (brotherhood) would be preserved through:

1. Strengthening law enforcement to prevent delayed or inadequate responses
2. Community engagement during festivals to foster trust and cooperation

1. Awareness campaigns to curb rumours and misinformation
2. Long-term measures addressing any fears of demographic shifts, economic inequalities, and resolving historical grievances

Related:

Institutional Murder in Odisha: A Student sets herself on fire to be heard

Bengali Migrant Workers Detained in Odisha: Calcutta High Court demands answers, seeks coordination between states

Bengali-Speaking Migrants Detained En Masse in Odisha: National security or targeted persecution?

From Protectors to Perpetrators? Police assaulted women, Children, Christian priests in Odisha: Fact-finding report

Odisha: 6 Months in Power, ‘Double-Engine’ BJP Govt Looks Button-Holed

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1. Student of IIM Calcutta arrested for allegedly raping a woman on campus: The survivor said that she had been sexually assaulted by the accused while she was unconscious.”
2. Drugged, filmed, threatened: Lucknow mall supervisor arrested for raping, assaulting 20-year-old
3. Days after horrific murder, woman assaulted on suspicion of practising black magic in Bihar’s Purnea
4. Harassed over dowry, Kerala woman kills infant daughter, then self
5. Radhika Yadav’s Murder: Psychology Of Pride, Patriarchy, And Prejudice. Parents may expect success and obedience from their children by projecting their own goals or fears onto them.
6. She Set Herself on Fire to Be Heard: Odisha student’s death is a wake-up call

• Girl set on fire by miscreants in Odisha airlifted to AIIMS Delhi for advanced treatment

7. Odisha: Congress student wing chief Udit Pradhan arrested in connection with alleged Bhubaneshwar rape case

These headlines, together, barely scratch the number of incidences of sexual violence against women in India, or the larger issue of gender-based violence in the country. However, what they are representative of is very important. According to the World Population Review’s Women Danger Index, India ranks 9th in the list of countries that are the most unsafe for female solo travellers.

Looking beyond the headlines, CJP’s analysis of the data from the National Crime Records Bureau’s Crimes in India 2022 report reveal that the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan have the highest number of incidences of crimes committed against women, with West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh not far behind.

Indian “culture” and its various segmentations have different sets of beliefs regarding women, but one thing it is inextricably linked to is patriarchy – and its various manifestations through different forms of violence. In this report, we analyse gender-based violence women and a few other gender minorities in India, gauging them into a timeline of what can be called a post-2020 one, through an intersectional lens that factors in caste, class and religion – and keeps in mind the structural and systemic inequities and inequalities that exist in contemporary Indian society.

In this report, we use data from CJP’s own database, and also data from multiple reliable think-tanks, non-governmental organisations, news outlets, legal filings and academic publications. We also take into account cross-verified posts from social media accounts that specialise in hate-watching, reporting on Dalit and Adivasi issues, etc. The data from the National Crime Records Bureau’s own publications has also been used for contextualization.

We have attempted to classify this data on the basis of geography, types of violence, and looked into institutional response: from law enforcement and respective state governments’ attitudes to caste-based violence. The report endeavours to be grounded in intersectionality, taking into account the changing metrics of class and gender, which quite obviously come into play while discussing caste.

Understanding Gender Based Violence

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines Gender Based Violence (GBV) as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” While the acronyms GBV and VAW (Violence Against Women) have been historically used as interchangeable terms post the former entered popular vocabulary in the 1990s, in current discourse GBV spans beyond the male-female binary of violence typology, and extends to multiple gender presentations and sexual identities, thus widening its working scope. The Council of Europe states, “Gender-based violence is based on an imbalance of power and is carried out with the intention to humiliate and make a person or group of people feel inferior and/ or subordinate. This type of violence is deeply rooted in the social and cultural structures, norms and values that govern society, and is often perpetuated by a culture of denial and silence. Gender-based violence can happen in both the private and public spheres and it affects women disproportionately.

Gender-based violence can be sexual, physical, verbal, psychological (emotional), or socio-economic and it can take many forms, from verbal violence and hate speech on the Internet, to rape or murder. It can be perpetrated by anyone: a current or former spouse/partner, a family member, a colleague from work, schoolmates, friends, an unknown person, or people who act on behalf of cultural, religious, state, or intra-state institutions. Gender-based violence, as with any type of violence, is an issue involving relations of power. It is based on a feeling of superiority, and an intention to assert that superiority in the family, at school, at work, in the community or in society as a whole … there is more to gender than being male or female: someone may be born with female sexual characteristics but identify as male, or as male and female at the same time, or sometimes as neither male nor female. LGBT+ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other people who do not fit the heterosexual norm or traditional gender binary categories) also suffer from violence which is based on their factual or perceived sexual orientation, and/or gender identity. For that reason, violence against such people falls within the scope of gender-based violence.”

These forms of violence vary across countries and cultures, and manifest in different formulations of perpetuating various degrees of hurt at women and other gender minorities.

Gender Based Violence on Women

GBV against women is systemic and structural. Chitra Lakhera writes, “When we frame violence systemically, it is freed from the liberal as well as radical assumptions of male dominance. It places emphasis on the observation of the system from within so that “actions” and not “actors” take precedence. While it does begin with a set of dichotomous variables—like men and women, violator and violated— but in its analysis, it discards such positions and only analyses communicational patterns that bring about peculiar forms of organizations. Luhmann [12] argues that social systems are essentially organized through communicational acts, which are also ultimately affected by psychological interpretations. Thus, the cultural codes and their psychological interpretations interact to produce a distinct social form of communication that, over time, formulate and sustain specific meanings and realities associated with women. Once internalized social systems built a self-destructive pattern within themselves, and they can no longer recognize injustice, inequality and violence as undesirable. A systems approach therefore re-reads the problem by unravelling the conscious and unconscious forces of aggression that produced historically through an interaction of social codes and psychological attributions.” In India, violence against women has been normalized to an observable form of a “natural precondition”, where the increasing figures of incidences reported do not raise alarm, but short-lived shock at best. This could be connected to Bourdieu’s conception of the “paradox of doxa” – which “refers to the puzzling observation that people often accept and even perpetuate social structures that disadvantage them, a phenomenon he termed “symbolic violence”. This paradox arises because doxa, the deeply ingrained, taken-for-granted beliefs and values of a society, are so normalized that they appear natural and inevitable, even when they contribute to social inequality.”

These forms of violence invent and reinvent themselves in more insidious styles, with the advancement of time – keeping at par with feminist progress, thus actively existing as a force of dismantlement, parallel to advancement of any sort – consistently undoing, if not essentially returning things to the original state. This violence, obviously, does not exist as a vacuum, assuming women as a uniform class that face the same degree of it across society. Caste, class and religious dynamics heavily influence the nature and the intensity of violence borne by women (and individuals, in general). Simantini Mukhopadhyay and Trisha Chanda explain that the failure to recognize intra-group differences would be detrimental in the context of violence against women since the experience of violence is often shaped by the simultaneous and complex interactions of the other identities of women, namely class and race, – as Crenshaw (1991) argued. Feminist writing in India has likewise argued that gender needs to be considered at its intersection with class and caste (a stratification unique to India) to understand how the control of female sexuality relates to the organization of production, sanctioned and legitimized by certain ideologies.

Typology

 Besides structural violence, in which there is no singular perpetrator-victim dichotomy but the existence of something larger, social and systemic – The World Report on Violence and Health, (WRVH 2002), presents a typology of violence that, while not uniformly accepted, can be a useful way to understand the contexts in which violence occurs and the interactions between types of violence. This typology distinguishes four modes in which violence may be inflicted: physical; sexual; psychological attack; and deprivation. It further divides the general definition of violence into three sub-types by using the victim-perpetrator relationship framework as required. These include

• Self-directed violence in which the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual and are subdivided into self-abuse and suicide.
• Interpersonal violence, between individuals, is subdivided into family and intimate partner violence and community violence. The first category includes child maltreatment; intimate partner violence; and elder abuse, while the second is broken down into acquaintance and stranger violence and includes youth violence; assault by strangers; violence related to property crimes; and violence in workplaces and other institutions.
• Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence (WRVH 2002: 6)

We can see this categorisation seep and structure itself into the categories of violence that we talk about further into the report.

We begin our typological analysis by looking at the last released intensive report by the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB): Crimes in India 2022. The data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that the rate of crimes against women in India (calculated as crimes per 100,000 of the women population) increased by 12.9% between 2018 and 2022. In India, the reported crimes against women per 100,000 women population is 66.4 in 2022, in comparison with 58.8 in 2018. This increase could be owed to a bevy of different factors, as Bushra Ansari and Sowmya Rajaram write, “including an increase in actual crimes, an improvement in reporting mechanisms, and a growing willingness of women to speak out about their experiences of violence.”

According to the NCRB, there were 445,256 incidents of reports of violence on women in India – inclusive of crimes categorized under the IPC (Indian Penal Code) and SLL (Special and Local Laws). Of these, the categories with the highest incidences were as follows:

1. Cruelty by Husband or his relatives (Sec. 498 A IPC, section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita): 140019 incidences, 144593 victims
2. Kidnapping & Abduction of Women (Total): 85310 incidences, 88273 victims
3. Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty (Sec. 354 IPC, Section 74 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita): 83344 incidences, 85300 victims
4. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Girl Child Victims only): 62095 incidences, 63116 victims
5. Rape (Total):  31516 incidences, 31982 victims

The following is a categorical breakdown of the shares of the different kinds of violence enacted upon women in the year 2022 – represented visually.

Kinds of Violence vs Number of Incidences – pictured.

According to the 2022 data, Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives is the crime with the highest number of incidences – and it comes under the banner of IPV (Inter Personal Violence) – and also its subcategory, intimate partner violence.

Giri and Parveen report in Intimate partner violence in India: Patterns, causes and way forward, that about 31.4% of Indian women between the ages of 18 and 49 report having at least once experienced domestic abuse, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), which was performed between 2019 and 21. This rate is lower than the statistics from NFHS-3 but slightly higher than the results of the previous survey (NFHS-4), which was conducted in 2015–16. The below graph shows the percentage of women who have experienced spousal violence at least once since the age of 15, according to the NFHS Report.

Based on data from the NFHS-5 report, the graph shows the proportion of women who have at least once experienced domestic abuse since they were 15 years old. The average percentage of spousal violence nationwide is 32%. It is important to note that intimate partner violence and domestic violence in India are conflatable categories, and domestic violence manifests in a number of different strategies that are used to corner the victim in households where the woman is married. This includes all the four forms of violence aforementioned: physical, psychological, sexual and deprivation.  The NCW (National Commission of Women), by May, had recorded 7698 complaints from women across the country, with domestic abuse topping the list by category. The Hindu reported, “The total comprised 367 cases in January, 390 in February, 513 in March, 322 in April, and two in May. The category alone accounted for nearly 20 per cent of all complaints, according to official data.

Closely following were complaints of criminal intimidation, which saw 989 cases over the three months – 268 in January, 260 in February, 288 in March, 170 in April, and three in May. Assault was the third most commonly reported issue, with 950 complaints — 249 in January, 239 in February, and 278 in March, 183 in April and one in May.”  Scholars have attributed this widespread prevalence of domestic violence in India – right from the very hetero-patriarchal structure that they are born into – with most parents holding men to a higher preference due to their status as “economic providers”, to their disempowerment in their adulthood which is a consequence of this setup – resulting in lower rates of literacy and financial freedom among them. Jennifer C Hughes and Shreya Bhandari refer to the use of the Duluth Power and Control Wheel. The wheel helps in understanding the different combinations of abuse tactics used by the abuser to keep control over the victim – “The diagram portrays the tactics an abusive partner uses to keep the victim in the relationship. Whereas the inside of the wheel consists of subtle, continual behaviours, like using threats and intimidation, the outer circle ring clearly states the various blatant forms of violence. The abusive acts in the outer ring (physical & sexual violence) are explicit, forceful and often intense in nature that reinforce the regular use of other subtle methods of abuse. The types of DV stated in the inner and the outer circle of the wheel are universal in nature and applicable globally (Pence & Paymar, 1993).”

The Duluth Power and Control Wheel (Source: Lived Experiences of Women Facing Domestic Violence in India, Shreya Bhandari & Jennifer C Hughes)

These tactics clearly highlight the fact that women are not safe in the confines of their own home – and almost every aspect of her emotional and social life are manipulated and weaponized against her to maintain the disequilibrium of power that exists in most marital homes for them.

A lot of the violence that comes within the ambit of domestic violence is that which is related to dowry negotiations. It is suggested that traditionally, dowry was a voluntary marriage gift from a bride’s family to the groom at the time of marriage.  According to Mitchell and Soni, a precise chronology of the development of dowry is not available; however, the literature suggests that the dowry system was gradually institutionalised and expanded during the British period in India.

Over the course of time, however, the nature of this gift turned from a voluntary one into a compulsion for the parents of young daughters to make large payments to the grooms’ families in order for their daughters to marry. Additionally, dowries are increasingly being extorted after the time of marriage, where husbands’ families are demanding money from the wives’ families long after the time of marriage by threatening the life and physical safety of the wife. When the dowry is not paid, the husband or his family may beat, burn or murder the wife as a means of punishing her family for not paying.

Historically, dowry was recognized as streedhan within the dominant-caste Hindu tradition, a form of women’s inheritance and female property. Accordingly, a common justification for dowry is that it is a pre-mortem inheritance since women do not get any share of their fathers’ property. In the absence of any inheritance, dowry has also been argued to be a pro-women institution. Another point of view is that dowry was primarily a strategy to compensate for women’s shares of immovable property and land. Nonetheless, the contemporary dowry practice is a ‘cultural oxymoron that has no resemblance to the historical institution’, and a bride rarely has any control over her dowry. The practice of dowry was originally limited to the upper caste community of northern India, but today, dowry is practiced across regions, castes and classes.

The caste system in India is a hereditary social ordering which historically prescribed an individual’s occupation and place in society. Numerous Indian communities that traditionally practiced bride-price have since switched to dowry, contributing to the rise of dowry demands. A bride-price is when a groom or groom’s family provides a gift to the bride and her family, and both practices have historically occurred in India. In South India, the change from bride-price to dowry appears to have occurred first among the urban, educated Brahmin caste and then spread rapidly to rural areas, among the lower castes, and to Christians and Muslims.

Data available on the NCW websites state that up till December 31, 17%, or 4383 complaints were received which were related to dowry harassment, along with 292 reports of dowry deaths.

Sexual Violence on married women: In 2011, The International Men and Gender Equality Survey revealed that one in five men have forced their wives to have sex. The United Nations Population Fund Survey revealed that more than two-thirds of Indian married women between 15 and 49 years old claimed to have been beaten or forced into sex by their husbands. In another study, conducted by the Joint Women’s Programme, an NGO, New Delhi – it was found that one out of seven married women in India has been raped by her husband at least once. The International Institute of Population Sciences claimed that 26 per cent of women in Pune, 23 per cent in Bhubaneswar, and 16 per cent in Jaipur often have sex with their husbands against their will. The study found a direct link between alcoholism and sexual abuse. One-fifth of the women surveyed said their husbands were often drunk while forcing sex. (Chhibar, 2016).

It is imperative to be mentioned that marital rape in India is not criminalised. Over the last few years, the Supreme Court has heard multiple petitions challenging the very exception in Section 375 of the IPC, which continues to be held up by its so-called revamped and progressive successor Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, states “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape”. The Supreme Court Observer notes that “On October 4, 2024, the Union government filed an affidavit opposing the striking down of the marital rape exception. The 49-page affidavit is said to be the first time where the Union has opposed the removal of the exception. The affidavit stated that while the husband has no right to deprive the fundamental right of a woman, describing this violation as “rape” under the “institution of marriage can be arguably considered to be excessively harsh and therefore, disproportionate.” It stated that marital rape should be made illegal and criminalised as “a woman’s consent is not obliterated by marriage…However, the consequences of such violations within marriage differ from those outside it.” However, it relied on other provisions in the IPC and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 which are equipped to “ensure serious penal consequences for such violations”. On October 23, 2024 – the Supreme Court deferred hearings related to petitions involving the same. Earlier this year – a High Court judge, in Chhattisgarh acquitted a 40-year-old man of all charges who was convicted in 2019 by a trial court of rape and unnatural sex with his wife, who died within hours of the assault. Geeta Pandey reports for the BBC, “According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the night of December 11, 2017, when the husband, who worked as a driver, “committed unnatural sex with the victim against her will… causing her a lot of pain”.

 After he left for work, she sought help from his sister and another relative, who took her to hospital where she died a few hours later.

In her statement to the police and her dying declaration to a magistrate, the woman said she became ill “due to forceful sexual intercourse by her husband”.

A dying declaration carries weight in court and legal experts say it is generally enough for conviction, unless contradicted by other evidence.

While convicting the man in 2019, the trial court had relied heavily on her dying declaration and the post-mortem report, which stated “the cause of death was peritonitis and rectal perforation” – simply put, severe injuries to her abdomen and rectum.

Justice Vyas, however, saw matters differently – he questioned the “sanctity” of the dying statement, noted that some of the witnesses had retracted their statements and, most importantly, said that marital rape was not an offence in India.”

The Duluth Wheel’s centre is not just applicable to domestic violence – but to all forms of it. It is explicit that different forms of violence exist to enforce power and control on women – both on their bodies and their consciousnesses. Social and state infrastructures consistently employ mechanisms to ensure “obedience” in women. Women’s bodies and minds consistently become sites of violence outside their homes — in familiar spaces, in unfamiliar ones, and structurally, by impinging on their freedoms and dignities.

In Indian culture, women are assigned value in terms of a connotative form of honour that directly correlates her virginity / sexuality with the idea of the reputation of the family and the morality of the society she belongs to. This often results in honour killings, forced marriages, and in some cases – imprisonment on accusations of ‘love jihad’ inter-community or inter-caste unions, and ostracism. There have been reports that worldwide, nearly 20000 honour killings happen annually – with a third of them being from India and Pakistan. Namrata writes, “Within the ambit of a society built on honour-based social boundaries, having any sexual desires, having any kind of romantic relationship or sometimes even friendship with the opposite sex is wholly impossible. Thus, to be a “good daughter”, one has to refrain from developing romantic interests prior to marriage arranged by the family. As a result, those who transgress these social boundaries of honour have no option but to elope from their homes. Previous research has shown how couples are compelled to leave their homes due to severe parental opposition to their ‘self-arranged’ relationship/marriage and subsequent threats of violence or even killing. In addition, there is increased opposition if the couple belonged to caste, class, religion, same sex or same gotra.”

Violence in the workforce: Women in the workforce are often subjected to symbolic and physical violence – in the form of comments, verbal abuse, and “teasing”, while at the same time bearing with sexual harassment and assault. Women in the formal sectors have recently started relying on the POSH [Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act] – however rates of reporting remain incredibly low, especially in corporate spaces. Experts have also recommended to companies to start taking the implementation of this act not just to smoothen legal procedure, but also to ensure that their employees are not afraid to come forward with their allegations. In 2024 and 2025, there has been an added spotlight on workplace insecurity for women working within the formal sector – with the rape of a young female trainee doctor at the with the rape of a young female trainee doctor at the RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata, and the publication of the Hema Committee report.

Similarly, women in the informal working sector, also pretty often fall victim to the predatory actions of their employers and co-workers. With very little legal protection available to marginalised women who work in economies like this — these cases impact these women to such an extent that they are also deterred from further approaching institutional figures in fear of more exploitation. To begin with, unlike women in the formal sector, a daily wage earner or a domestic worker has no proof of employment to establish that she was at a workplace. Apart from this, according to section 9, any complaint of harassment has to be reported within three months. But as per the act, the committee is allowed to accept complaints even after this period. Social science researcher Anagha Sarpotdar found that committees do not interpret the provision to account for the marginalised condition of informal sector workers as a reason for delays in filing complaints.

— Digital Violence: The digital biosphere is one more space where women and queer people are consistently victimized — Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence, or TFGBV — is a form of violence that has heightened over the last few years. Women often find themselves cyberstalked, harassed, abused, doxed, and even sexually violated. The advent of generative AI has made it extremely easy for abusive users to utilize publicly available photos on social media to make deepfake porn, and non-consensual nudes that they then circulate around the internet. A lot of this occurs especially to women who are outspoken on social media platforms — who are cyberstalked, harassed, and essentially “put in their place”. There has been extensive research done on manospheres across the Internet, and its growth in the Indian digital space — and its insidious connection to Brahminical patriarchy.

A report by USAID states, “Male dominance in online spaces and gendered cultural norms often make the internet inhospitable for women and girls. Just the idea of independent women making their opinions known online, regardless of the content, challenges the patriarchal social structure in India and makes them more vulnerable to violence. Because of this, research shows that female journalists, women’s rights activists, and politicians face much higher rates of online abuse compared to other women. This also contributes to women and girls self-censoring online. Women tend to only communicate to people they know online, use more private settings for communication, and are more selective about posting online—yet these actions create a barrier to being able to fully exercise their rights and freedoms in online spaces. This further perpetuates the patriarchal notion that women are unwelcome in public spaces.”

Indian Muslim Women and their trials with Gender-Based Violence

Muslim women in India face an intense form of gender-based violence that is located at the conjunction of multiple misogynies and oppressive structures. As feminist geopolitics research shows, territory-making and nation-building produce gendered victims and threats that necessitate assimilation or securitization within those borders. Gupta et. al suggest that women have been cast as victims in need of saving in many “femo-nationalist” state projects; here Muslim women are positioned as subjects to be protected by the Indian state while Muslim men are criminalized as intimate and geopolitical threats and become the targets of securitization. Muslim women’s legal claims for gender justice and equality are submerged in discourses of nationalism, religion, class, and electoral politics. The Triple Talaq judgment produces similar effects. Muslim women’s demands for marriage and divorce rights have paved the way for the state to criminalise Muslim men.

Nationalism takes a specific form in India, which was paradoxically defined in 1947 as secular through borders drawn according to religious identity. Post-independence politicians foregrounded India’s secular nature as one of its defining features, but in recent decades, this secularism has been contested. Hindu nationalism has gained force since the 1980s, portraying religious minorities in India as an existential threat. This is particularly true for the Muslim population, as partition along religious lines laid the foundation for Muslims to be understood as India’s eternal internal and external other. Under the government of Narendra Modi, systematic retrenchment of this othering has escalated in events such as the February 2020 violence against Muslims in New Delhi, which killed 52 (mostly Muslim) people. These episodes of violence targeting Muslims were in response to peaceful anti-citizenship amendment Act (CAA) protests (HRW, 2020), reaffirming the systemic violence inflicted against Muslims by the state. The Triple Talaq case reverberates and intensifies the RSS territorial notion of Akhand Bharat, i.e., an India undivided along religious lines. Akhand Bharat is a claim to territorial space that requires the exclusion of the other, with the Muslim populace being cast as such – with them being rendered into a shield of sorts, where their entire existence is flattened into deflection and villainization

In the context of a postcolonial nationalism that has relied upon representations of a Muslim other, legal cases that treat Muslim marriage and divorce practices as a problem requiring a legal solution are a means through which this minoritised religious community can be further marked as outside the boundaries of the nation-state. At the same time, through these legal cases, Muslims are selectively gendered and, through carceral logics, hailed into the state through legal subjecthood. As state actors and politicians seek to shore up the state’s ontological security, or to emphasize security threats for political purposes, they imperil the bodily safety and security of those marked as threatening others.

Gupta et. al further go on to suggest that these personal laws relegate Muslim men and women into the role of managed and manageable threat. When Muslim women are called into the state through the auspices of the law, they cannot engage in the fullness of their humanity, but are rendered as symbols and geopolitical instruments in relation to religious identity. The law is one vector through which global and national forms of paternalistic and Islamophobic discourses land upon women’s and men’s bodies. Laws can protect, safeguard, alienate, or criminalise people, places and entities. Laws that are ostensibly for the protection of Muslim women, minorities and other marginalized communities (and the discourses that surround them) can further state building and territory making. Muslims residing within the territory of India are marked as perpetual outsiders, and securitized through the creation of laws to manage their produced outsiderness. Following Perry, the law in this case situates Shah Bano within the “architecture of patriarchy,” here, a patriarchy formed in relation to the Hindu nation. This limits the horizons of possibility in terms of what kinds of justice can be obtained through legal recourse. To turn to the law, in this case, compromises the humanity of the community.

This continuous struggle with the state compounds and complicates the misogynistic attacks that Muslim women otherwise face, from their own and other communities alike. Not only do they face the culturally Indian patriarchy that looms over every female citizen in the country, they also have to constantly be wary of facing communal violence.

In 2021, many Muslim women – particularly those who had been outspoken in some shape or form in relation to feminist causes were found to be auctioned off on apps like Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai. Functionaries of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have also been criticised for their excessively staunch stances. Amana Begam Ansari writes for the print, “AIMPLB also exhibits casteist and classist characteristic, as majority of its members come from the Ashraaf castes and upper socio-economic backgrounds. They often fail to understand or acknowledge the realities faced by ordinary Muslims, particularly those belonging to the Pasmanda community. These communities have distinct cultural differences from those in Arab countries. However, in the name of Sharia, the AIMPLB tends to prescribe laws based on their own cultural perspectives. Take this for example. Majority of Muslims do not practise polygamy and divorces are not socially acceptable. Hence, banning polygamy would make sense to protect the interests of ordinary Muslim women. However, the AIMPLB consistently opposes such measures.”

Within the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Muslims in India, there also exists a tradition of Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting (FGM/C) : in which there is a complete or partial removal of the clitoral hood because of its implied existence as an immoral piece of flesh. Currently, there are no legal protections against FGM/C.  Many scholars within the Dawoodi Bohra committee have protested against this practice, along with many pointing out that it is banned across the world in multiple Islamic countries. With the spread of dowry practices from Hindu to Muslim communities, resulting in multiple deaths across the nation.

It is to be noted that all of this violence that Muslim women are subjected to does not exist in a bubble or a vacuum. Patriarchal control over their lives has been challenged and condemned by Muslim women over decades, with them adopting different versions of feminism, be it Islamic or secular.

Violence faced by Dalit, Adivasi and Christian Women in India

Dalit women find themselves triply marginalised by gender, caste and class hierarchies in India. Out of the 200 million population of Dalits in India, 50% are women who disproportionately suffer from gender based violence and casteism. Pupul Lama writes for COFEM that the feminist research indicates that violence in the form of ‘caste privilege’ occurs due to the upper caste hegemony wherein men assume autonomy over Dalit women’s bodies and sexuality. This ideological hegemony of the caste-gender connection maintains caste boundaries and legitimizes GBV against Dalit women and girls to preserve the ‘purity of caste.’ In the Brahmanical sense, severe forms of sexual violence such as gang rape are often viewed as a weapon by the oppressor caste males to reinforce caste hierarchies and exercise power by collectively stealing the honour of Dalit women and their communities. It is also horrifying — the plight of Dalit girls who also become victims of SGBV through heinous caste-driven religious practices such as the Devadasi system, i.e., female prostitution in temples where they are forced to offer sexual services with religious sanctions. Not only are such practices rarely condemned by Hindus, they have also managed to romanticise this practice over time through various ostentatious displays of “culture”.

Between 2009 and 2019, the incidence of rape against Dalit women increased at a gruesome rate of 159%. What one also notices is that through time, Dalit victims of sexual and gender based violence and/or other crimes perpetrated by oppressor caste communities have reportage of the same neutralized, to completely invisibilise casteism and making it a solely gender issue. The judiciary and the institutional actors repeatedly fail at protecting Dalit women — IDSN had once pointed out that the conviction rate of rapes in India against Dalit women is only at a mere 2%, as opposed to the national average of 25%. The labour of Dalit women is also constantly erased — with almost 98% of those forced into manual scavenging being women.

Violence on Dalit and Christian women are intertwined in India. While savarna Christian women report on violence and patriarchal rules that affect many of them, Dalit/Adivasi Christian women, who are converts, are treated quite differently. One of the major allegations against Christians ever since the rise of the Hindutva government has been ‘conversion’. CJP recorded multiple hate crimes in the month of June, where women were attacked by Hindutva fanatics and “activists”, and they were humiliated constantly. At the same time, Dalit and Adivasi bodies of women are recognized as “more available”, when it comes to becoming subjects of harm.

Blessy Prasad writes in In India: Bearing the cross of gender, faith and tribe — that Christian Adivasi women often face trouble in their villages in the form of ostracism and harassment, and it concerns them further because they are primary caregivers within their families. Christian tribal women face severe economic marginalization, exacerbated by their tribal status and faith. Tribal economies in India rely heavily on agriculture and forest resources, where women contribute significantly but rarely hold land titles due to patriarchal customary laws. Conversion to Christianity can further restrict their access to communal resources, as village councils may deny them rights to shared land or forest produce. In Chhattisgarh, Christian tribal women often are excluded from government welfare programs, such as the Public Distribution System, due to religious discrimination by local authorities. Economic opportunities are scarce in remote tribal areas, and women face additional barriers in accessing credit or markets due to mobility restrictions and social stigma. Unlike non-Christian tribal women, who may rely on traditional networks, Christian converts often are cut off from these support systems, pushing them into precarious labour like daily wage work.

Christian tribal women have long been targets of gender based violence – during the 2007 Kandhamal riots, a huge number of them were raped and sexually assaulted. With forest areas in India becoming increasingly militarized / with government employed forces treating Adivasis like criminals in areas like Chhattisgarh and Telangana, the safety of women becomes another pressing issue to keep in mind.

Mapping Gender Based Violence on Women in India

Ansari and Rajaram further state, “The statistics in “Crime in India 2022”, the annual report by NCRB, show that a total of 13 States and Union Territories recorded crime rates higher than the national average of 66.4. Delhi topped the list at 144.4, followed by Haryana (118.7), Telangana (117), Rajasthan (115.1), Odisha (103.3), Andhra Pradesh (96.2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (93.7), Kerala (82), Assam (81.2), Madhya Pradesh (78.8), Uttarakhand (77), Maharashtra (75.1), and West Bengal (71.8). The rate of crime in Uttar Pradesh — which contributed nearly 15 percent of the cases in India — stood at 58.6.” On an incidence count-metric, the four worst offending states would be Uttar Pradesh (65743 incidences), Rajasthan (45058), and Maharashtra (45331). Among Union Territories, quite predictably – is Delhi maintaining its spot as the region with the most number of crimes as it does when it comes to metropolitan cities.

The following are graphical representations of the same.

This choropleth map locates the incidences of violence in India on the basis of state-wise intensity.

This map shows intensity of violence with regards to cities.

As visible in the data above, the three worst offending states were Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh: While Google search results would lead you to believe that Uttar Pradesh has been taking aggressive steps in making sure that violence against women stays in check, the on-ground reality has been quite different. For starters, UP’s state assembly only has 51 female MLAs out of  the 403 elected members — which only amounts to a rough 12.65%. The reigning party, BJP, in the state has had a lot of issues — with members attacking each other. The state’s Yogi Adityanath, has also stigmatised women in his speeches before.

At the same time, the Minister of State for Child Development, Nutrition and Women’s Welfare of Uttar Pradesh — Pratibha Shukla, has previously vocally stated her partiality to Brahmins, going as far as to tiff with a fellow party leader on the grounds that he was promising the people a lot. According to current National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, Uttar Pradesh tops the list for crimes against women, yet the state has been hesitant to use the Nirbhaya fund, which is designated for guaranteeing the protection of women. Smriti Irani, the former Union minister for women and child development, recently informed parliament that Uttar Pradesh had used less than 4% of the funding allotted to it.^[1] Only 39.3 million of the 1,193.98 million dollars allotted to the state under which the fund has been used. Just 3.29 percent of the budgeted cash has been used. Following the violent rape and murder of a Delhi resident, the Nirbhaya Fund was revealed in the 2013 Union budget. The grant was intended to be used for initiatives that would directly improve women’s safety and security. (Meena & Kumar, 2022).

Maharashtra: Maharashtra has only 22 female MLAs, down from 24 last term – constituting only 7.6% of the total number. The state government has also not been faring well in terms of promises it made before coming to power. A Frontline report revealed that the Mahayuti government has been grasping for straws as its most successful strategic device, the Ladki Bahin Yojana – something that they had taken from MP’s style of governance – is looking to shrink. The Maharashtra Mahayuti government’s promised scheme, to grant Rs.1,500 every month to women below the poverty line, has begun to show cracks as the State faces a financial crunch in development work. Out of the 2.5 crore women registered under this scheme, the state is looking at a massive cutdown of around 15% – which is around 32-35 lakh women.

The rape case at Pune’s Swargate bus terminus has resulted in a lot of discourse surrounding the myth that Maharashtra is a “safe” state for women. The comments of the accused’s lawyer, and minister Yogesh Kadam who insisted that the victim did not ‘resist’.

In May, Nisha Nambiar had reported for The Times of India, that there exists a critical gap in Maharashtra’s emergency response system — as the integration of the women’s helpline (181l with the police helpline (112) remains incomplete even 2 years after its launch. The state government run call centre functions on only five operating systems, instead of the required 15. 15 personnel, apparently, handle the brunt of 3000+ calls every day. 

Rajasthan: Rajasthan, currently, has 21 female MLAs out of the 200 total count – barely crossing the 10% mark. On the other hand, Down To Earth reported that during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there were nearly 21 million women “missing” — women who were eligible to vote, but their names were excluded from lists due to the absence of voter cards or other complications. Out of these, Rajasthan was one of the top 3 offenders, which accounted for 10% of the 21 million women who were “missing”.

The security of women within the state has denigrated — as CJP, in its June report, Rajasthan recounted so many incidents of violence that it added up to a rape crisis. The Femme First Foundation reported in 2023 the state has initiated movements for the empowerment of women and girl children by introducing various schemes, focusing on education, the right to life and even financing women entrepreneurs  – ideal when . Sneha Sharon Patra writes, “Women have been moulded into living in a controlling lifestyle of multiple traditions, especially patriarchy, for so long that most get accustomed to the discrimination and accept it as natural. The dominance of certain traditions such as child marriage, dowry system, inferior treatment shown to women, sex selection, not celebrating the birth of girl-child, naming girls Mafi (Sorry), forcing them to drop out of school after primary level to assist at home while boys are expected to be educated and working are some examples of this. This develops into a conservative lifestyle for the women and restricts the voice of young girls adding to reasons for not being able to stand up for themselves.”

While now often referred to as a stereotype, Child marriage is still prevalent in Rajasthan, with 25.4% of women aged 20-24 having been married before 18, according to NFHS-5.

This is higher than the national average of 23.3%. The decline in child marriage rates has been observed, with the percentage of women married before 18 decreasing from 35.4% in 2015-16 to 25.4% in 2019-21.

West Bengal: West Bengal’s political relationship with the women residing in it is increasingly complicated. While the State Assembly has 41 female MLAs out of 294 – the state also has a Chief Minister who is female. While citizens had kept expectations of Mamata Banerjee and her party, Trinamool Congress in having a proactive approach towards handling women’s issues, the ministry has often disappointed. Post the gang-rape of a law student in Kolkata, Mahua Moitra, an MP from the state’s ruling party called out MP Kalyan Banerjee and MLA Madan Mitra for stating that women should be careful about the kind of company they keep – and not accompany those who have a “dirty mindset”. This is not a stand-alone incident, Banerjee herself has referred to the Park Street rape as an “orchestrated” event to malign her government. The state has also seen a string of high-profile cases of extreme violence against women, leading the citizens to lead consistent protest marches.

Soham Bhattacharyya and Torsa Saha write in Making of a Rape–Murder Atrocity and the Failed State of West Bengal, “The sense of irony that inspires and informs this write-up is produced by the popular portrayal of the TMC as the champion of women’s welfare in mainstream media. Economic pundits have lauded the TMC regime for its initiatives such as “Lakshmir Bhandar” (conditional cash transfers to married women), Kanyashree (cash transfer support towards female students), etc. Such schemes have been celebrated as evidence of the “progressive welfare force” at play, highlighting the support from the rural female vote bank that enables the TMC politically and socially (Bhattacharya and Chowdhury 2024). The recent reportages on rape and threat culture, however, point towards the rise of a politico-cultural mechanism that creates and sustains such a social environment, controlled largely by a network of locally operative TMC henchmen and their “franchise” (Bhattacharya 2023). If one puts together all the registered cases of crime and violence against women, it becomes evident that the figures have increased manifold. The fact that West Bengal consistently contributes to 5%–6% of total registered rapes and attempted rapes against women in India per week also highlights the failure of the mainstream media in reporting such instances of crime and atrocity.”

According to the authors, the data and discussion therefore bring to light two significant aspects. First, the two metrics of an emerging political ideology and the economic policies that sustain the socio-political system complement each other surreptitiously. The mainstream discourses around the economic welfare schemes introduced by the TMC government not only dilute the gravity of the increasing crimes against women but also serve to normalise a culture of gendered violence. Second, there seems to be no accountability for the recurrent institutional lapses that render women, especially working women from every socio-economic stratum, more and more vulnerable to the rising degrees of crime and violence in the state. These politico-economic mechanisms—as evident in the cases of Park Street, Kamduni, Sandeshkhali, R G Kar and so many other unreported ones—operate to create an atmosphere of fear and shame, enabled and controlled centrally by the informally organised wings of the TMC.

Madhya Pradesh : While Madhya Pradesh has a better share of women MLAs in their legislature, the state continues to appear in the news for the very reasons it should not. A recent report from The Indian Express notes, “A mob in Tetgama village of Purnia district assaulted and burnt alive five members of a tribal family, including three women, when the 16-year-old boy allegedly named his own mother as the witch. Three months ago, a 60-year-old indigenous woman in Rohtas suffered a similar fate. There are reports of women being strangled, and abandoned in jungles in the Khunti and East Singhbhum regions of Jharkhand because they were made scapegoats, blamed for someone’s sickness. In another recent incident in Umaria, Madhya Pradesh, on July 7, a tribal man was almost killed by physical assault by neighbours who believed he had used demonic powers to call out disease.” Witch-hunting in India, while sounding like it’s rooted in superstition, is far more complicated than that. It is an entirely gendered process of identification. While the male spiritual healers, called ojhas, are held in reverence and allowed the liberty to point out the witch – the “evil” female is blamed for poor harvests, land grabbing, and even ill-health in children. It often so happens that these women are the ones who have objected to sexual advances, hostile land takeovers, or essentially self-asserted. Madhya Pradesh, in the last few years, has emerged as a hotspot for such activity.

The state ministry is not far behind either, with MP Kailash Vijayvargiya announcing in a public meeting that he prefers girls who do not “wear skimpy clothes”. While Shivraj Singh Chouhan has earned the name “mama” for his intensive introduction of welfare schemes for women and for increasing the budget of the Women and Child Development Department from Rs 14,686 crore in the last fiscal to Rs 26,560 for the financial year 2024-2025, him and his government continue to stay silent on the fact that nearly 31,000 girls have gone missing from the state – from 2021 to 2024. Indore, reportedly, had 2384 cases of disappearances, but only 15 were registered by the police.

Delhi emerges as the city with the highest incidences of crime in the country. According to the WHO, data shows that the population of women in New Delhi was 1.5% of that of India as a whole, while crime against women was slightly higher at 5.2% (Table 4). In regard to the pattern of crime against women, it was noticed that the number of cases registered under “outrage and insult to modesty” was much higher in New Delhi (40.4%) in comparison to the country as a whole (27.8%). However, cruelty by husband and in-laws (members of husband’s family) was less common in New Delhi (20.5%) in comparison to the whole country (34.6%) (Table 5). Similarly, kidnapping and abduction cases registered were also higher in New Delhi (25.0%) in comparison to the country (18.1%). The One Stop Centers (OSCs) which were set up in Delhi post the Nirbhaya Rape Case failed completely – with The Reporter’s Collective digging up an undisclosed report from NITI Aayog, which stated that there was only 4% awareness existed among people regarding these centre’s existence. So have the 181 helplines.

This is clearly indicative of a deeper rot, where systematically, information has been hidden and configured in a way to protect the unpalatable ways the government of the city failed its women. Delhi’s status as national capital while being

Violence on LGBTQ+ People in India

The NCRB , as per the data from Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM), does not maintain specific data on crimes against trans people. a global project tracking homicide against transgender and gender-diverse persons, India recorded 102 registered murders of transgender persons between 2008 and 2021.

The NCRB report from 2021 reported that 236 Trans persons are reported victims of all crimes in India. As is apparent, these numbers are extremely low, and they are a reflection of severe underreporting of crimes, a result of inadequate documentation of the lives of trans persons — and genuine lack of initiative and interest in the lives of trans people in this country by the government. Trans, intersex, and hijra people already exist in the frays of society in India — with decisions taken on their life and living without active thought put into them.

As per a 2016 study conducted by National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), 31.5% of transwomen reported having been “forced to have sex in their first sexual encounter with a male partner. However, the legal framework under the old penal regime failed to adequately protect transwomen. In India, the landmark NALSA judgment of 2014 granted a range of rights to transgender persons under the Indian Constitution, with the right to self-identification being a primary focus.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, codified these rights into law.

However, the execution of the right to self-identification remains entangled in procedural difficulties such as issuing trans identity cards is hobbled by bureaucratic delays, gender biases, digital access issues, lack of sensitivity among the administrative staff, and unwarranted verification processes, rendering the lives (and deaths) of transgender individuals largely invisible in the country’s statistics. While Trans women could register their complaints under section 354A of the IPC, which has now been introduced as section 74 in the new BNS Act, without any change, for the offence of sexual harassment, the removal of section 377 leaves Trans persons with limited options for legal recourse for sodomy.

This purposeful reading out of protection for men and Trans persons is not only a failed opportunity to create a more just and equitable legal system but also reeks of misogyny in as much as there is a tacit understanding that it is only the bodies of women that need protection and that such protection need not be given to an anyone who is not a woman or a child. It also reflects a very one-dimensional understanding of the workings of gender justice.

The situation gets worse, as justice falters most profoundly in the cases of sexual assault against transgender individuals, who are mostly caught under the definitional void of men and women — considering any comprehension of non-cis identities are still treated as unnecessary and marginal in India, with the most inclusivity being available in the recognition of a “Third Gender”. Trans people were subject to different forms of sexual assault, like rape, sodomy, bestiality etc., collateralized with extortion, abuse, and violence, and often get unrecognized due to lack of proper protection and specific mentioning under the relevant statutes interwoven with various other socio-economic factors. A sampled survey shows an overwhelming eighty percent of the sample had experienced sexual assault and 37% reported repeat victimization-assault during both childhood and adulthood, a testament to their consistent vulnerability.

Abuse faced by Trans sex workers can also be worse than female sex workers. Compared to Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sexual abuse of a ciswoman and punishes the accused with rigorous imprisonment of at least ten years to life and a fine, the provisions under the Trans Act are starkly discriminatory and violative of the Constitutional right to equality of trans persons, thus reaffirming the near-subhuman legal treatment meted out to them.

According to the Centre for Law and Policy Research,  apart from the Trans Act, there are other laws that are used to harass and arrest trans persons in public spaces. One such example is the Telangana Eunuch Act, 1919 which borrows definitions and provisions from the repealed Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. Both Acts from colonial times, classify ‘eunuchs’ as habitual criminals, who by virtue of their birth, were seen as predisposed to committing petty offences and under Section 4 of the Act, police and state authorities are often found arresting transgender persons in cases where they are found singing or dancing or cross-dressing in public spaces. The said legislation has been stayed by the Telangana High Court in a petition challenging the constitutionality of this legislation. (Singh, 2023)

Institutional Action and Policy Changes

In India, institutional failures in addressing gender based violence is a combination of wilful ignorance, large-scale logistical failures, discriminatory policy making which is a feature of an ethnonationalist state — and large-scale corruption. The problem with the current state apparatus is that in its entire ordeal of promoting India as an “old civilization” rooted in culture, and holding mythology and scripture to apotheosized value — a lot of its machinery has refused to let in progress that is non-technological, in order to hold onto a homogenised idea of “Indian culture”, which is a combination of post capitalism and Brahminical heteropatriarchy.

Some of the Key Areas of Institutional Failure are as follows:

Law Enforcement:

Underreporting: Many GBV cases, particularly domestic violence and sexual assault, go unreported due to fear of stigma, lack of trust in law enforcement, and inadequate support systems. This is further exacerbated by ministers and government mouthpieces who further blame victims, questioning their morality.

Ineffective Investigation and Police Incompetence: Even when reported, police investigations are often delayed and inadequate. Officers often lack empathy or form any sort of respect for the survivor’s needs, leading to a lack of justice — and this failure is systemic because of administrations’ incompetence to train officers in gender sensitivity. A number of times, also, the police refuse to register cases if the perpetrator is influential — or if the victim does not fit the ideal of one.

Bias, Dog-piling, and Victim-Blaming: Law enforcement officers may exhibit biases against survivors, especially in cases of sexual assault, and may even engage in victim-blaming, therefore leading to women making the decision to avoid this added trauma altogether. The judicial process in GBV cases can be entirely too lengthy, which might span years, thus multiple people might not want to go through a process so taxing.

Even when perpetrators are convicted, sentences may be lenient, particularly in cases of domestic violence, sending a message that such violence is not taken seriously. Many judicial officers and lawyers may lack adequate training and awareness regarding GBV, leading to insensitive handling of cases and perpetuating harmful stereotypes. A lot of the time gender sensitisation is so little that judicial officers have no conception of dealing with people with histories of facing abuse.

Lack of Social Support Systems:

There is a severe shortage of safe shelters and accessible counselling services for survivors of GBV, leaving them with limited options for immediate support and long-term recovery. As aforementioned, when the governments are doing the needful, and setting up systems, they are not divesting enough money or energy in promoting these resources, thus fundamentally leaving them defunct.

Reformed Approach to Development

India needs a drastic restructuring of its policymaking practices, and ground the entire process in feminist allyship — and inclusivity, rather than using everyone as pawns to secure vote banks. Empathy should be one of the foremost devices that the state should employ, rather than a later thought.

The approach should also be rooted in the understanding that women are to be assimilated into society, and not segregated into confinements. Nilanjana Bhowmick writes, the institutional response to gender-based violence in India has mostly been to segregate women further. They want women to be confined to “safe” zones – pink carriages in the metro, pink autos, pink bus tickets, pink parks, pink toilets, separate queues. This segregation does not make public spaces any safer or more comfortable for women. This isolation of women, and invisibilization of non-cis, queer bodies enforces the belief that the public space is not a collective one, but only leased out by men out of their withdrawable benevolence.

The current figure on the NCW website for the number of complaints it has received is 13,583. When we started writing this report –a period of a month, approximately– it was in the 12,000s!

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this graphic visualisation report has been worked on by Saptaparma Samajdar)

[1] In the second term of the Modi Government, 2019-2024, Irani was appointed given the key portfolio Union Minister for Women and Child Development. Subsequently, in the cabinet re-shuffle of July 2021, Irani was again given the charge of the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The post Reading Violence: Gender injustice in India and its dimensions appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Central to this crisis was the looting of state armouries and the empowerment of militias such as Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, which transformed localised protests into a full-blown conflict. The Tribunal highlights sharp disparities in relief and rehabilitation between valley-based Meitei camps and tribal camps in the hills, deepening inequality and resentment. It exposes the intimidation of media, manipulation of information, and prolonged internet shutdowns, which deprived citizens of accurate reporting and curtailed accountability. Sexual violence was deployed as a weapon of war, yet survivors continue to face barriers in accessing justice.

The IPT prescribes urgent corrective measures. It recommends the establishment of a Supreme Court–monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate crimes, an audit of weapons looted from armouries, and the publication of all reports of the Gita Mittal Committee and the Justice Ajai Lamba Commission. It calls for survivor-centric justice mechanisms, equitable relief and rehabilitation, reintegration of the health workforce, disarmament of militias, and the creation of a peacebuilding architecture rooted in dialogue, reparations, and truth-telling. This report is both a condemnation of state complicity and paralysis, and a roadmap for rebuilding constitutional order in Manipur.

Background and mandate of the Tribunal

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), alarmed by the scale and persistence of violence in Manipur, constituted the Independent People’s Tribunal in March 2024. The Tribunal was conceived as a people’s forum of accountability in response to the limitations of official commissions of inquiry. Its mandate was broad: to document rights violations, examine the role of state and non-state actors, identify systemic failures, and propose remedial measures consistent with constitutional principles.

The jury included some of India’s most respected jurists and administrators: Justice Kurian Joseph (former Supreme Court judge), Justice K. Kannan (former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge), and Justice Anjana Prakash (former Patna High Court judge). They were joined by senior bureaucrats, academics, activists, and experts in public health, gender studies, law, and conflict resolution. This multidisciplinary composition ensured that the Tribunal’s findings combined legal scrutiny, social analysis, and humanitarian perspective.

The Tribunal’s authority rested not on statutory powers but on moral legitimacy, independence, and its ability to centre the experiences of survivors. It deliberately sought to amplify voices that had been marginalised in official narratives, particularly those of displaced communities, women survivors of violence, and minority groups.

Methodology

The Tribunal undertook an extensive process of documentation. Between May and June 2024, jury members and experts spent nearly two weeks in Manipur, visiting affected districts, relief camps, and conflict-affected villages. They met survivors across communities—Meitei, Kuki-Zo, Naga, and Pangal—as well as service providers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, public officials, and security personnel.

The Tribunal held follow-up sittings in Delhi and conducted virtual hearings through September 2024. It reviewed hundreds of pages of affidavits, photographs, video evidence, and documents submitted by survivors, civil society organisations, and independent observers. The process was marked by careful triangulation: testimonies were cross-verified with documentary evidence and field observations.

The Tribunal faced limitations inherent to a conflict setting. Severe polarisation and mistrust made testimony collection difficult. Many survivors were reluctant to speak openly due to threats or fear of reprisals. Journalists faced intimidation, and access to certain districts was restricted by security blockades. Despite these obstacles, the Tribunal’s findings rest on a robust evidentiary base, ensuring credibility and accuracy.

Historical and political context

Manipur is an ethnically diverse state with deep-seated historical grievances. The Meiteis constitute approximately 53% of the population and are concentrated in the valley. The Kukis, Zos, and Nagas make up a significant share of the hill population, with the Nagas around 24% and Kukis and Zos around 16%. While the Nagas were not a direct party to the conflict, they too were affected by its fallout.

The immediate trigger of the violence was the March 27, 2023 order of the Manipur High Court, directing the state to recommend Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the Meiteis. This decision was perceived by tribal groups as a direct threat to their rights over land and resources, since ST status would enable Meiteis to purchase land in the hills. In response, tribal organisations organised a solidarity march on May 3, 2023. The march was peaceful until rumours and orchestrated provocations turned it into large-scale violence.

The Tribunal notes that this was not an isolated communal clash but a conflict shaped by three distinctive factors: first, the politicisation of the state apparatus, which failed to act neutrally; second, the rise of non-state militias like Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, which carried out targeted campaigns of violence; and third, the looting of state armouries, which gave armed groups access to modern weaponry. These factors combined to transform temporary clashes into systemic violence and ethnic cleansing.

Patterns of violence

The Tribunal found overwhelming evidence that the violence was orchestrated rather than spontaneous. Militias such as Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun mobilised youth, armed them with looted weapons, and coordinated attacks. These groups suppressed dissent within their own communities, enforcing ethnic conformity through intimidation.

Repeated raids on state armouries between May 2023 and 2024 supplied militias with automatic rifles, machine guns, and explosives. These weapons were deployed in assaults on villages, churches, and civilian populations. The Tribunal highlights that the failure to prevent armoury raids, despite the deployment of large numbers of security personnel, reflects systemic complicity or negligence.

Religious persecution was a defining feature of the violence. Over 250 churches were destroyed or desecrated, particularly in the valley. Survivors recounted the burning of places of worship, desecration of sacred objects, and threats directed at pastors and priests. The Tribunal interprets these attacks as deliberate attempts to erase minority identities.

By late 2024, the violence had created stark ethnic segregation. Kukis and Zos had been expelled from the valley, while Meiteis had been driven out of the hills. The state was effectively divided into ethnic enclaves, with movement between districts restricted and controlled by informal ethnic borders.

Humanitarian impact

The human toll has been catastrophic. Around 260 people were killed, and between 50,000 and 60,000 were displaced. Displaced families were forced into more than 350 relief camps scattered across the state. These camps varied in quality: valley-based camps, predominantly housing Meiteis, received relatively better facilities, while tribal camps in the hills were overcrowded and under-resourced.

Survivors in tribal camps reported inadequate shelter, poor sanitation, scarcity of food supplies, and limited access to healthcare and education. Children faced prolonged disruption of schooling, and women bore disproportionate burdens of care. Many camps, originally conceived as temporary, have now become semi-permanent, deepening despair among displaced populations. The Tribunal stresses that the absence of a comprehensive rehabilitation plan has entrenched displacement as a permanent condition.

Gender-based violence

Gender-based violence emerged as a weapon of war in this conflict. The Tribunal documented dozens of cases of sexual violence across communities, although the true scale is likely far higher. Survivors testified to gang rapes, sexual assault during displacement, and threats of sexual violence used as a form of intimidation.

Justice mechanisms failed survivors. FIRs were delayed or not registered, medico-legal examinations were denied or improperly conducted, and survivor protection measures were absent. The Tribunal emphasises that accountability must go beyond individual perpetrators. Command responsibility must be established, holding state officials and militia leaders accountable for enabling or failing to prevent sexual violence. Fast-track courts and survivor-centred justice frameworks are urgently required.

Health and mental health crisis

The conflict devastated Manipur’s health system. Hospitals became inaccessible to communities displaced across ethnic lines. Tribal survivors reported being turned away from valley hospitals out of fear or hostility, while Meitei patients avoided hill hospitals. This led to preventable deaths from untreated conditions.

Mental health needs were acute. Survivors described chronic anxiety, nightmares, and depression, while journalists and aid workers also exhibited signs of trauma. With no dedicated trauma-care infrastructure, the psychological scars of the violence remain untreated. The Tribunal recommends reintegration of health services across ethnic divides, the establishment of trauma-informed care protocols, and the embedding of mental health services in relief camps.

Media and information disorder

The conflict was aggravated by information disorder. Local media often adopted partisan narratives, depicting Kuki-Zo communities as “illegal immigrants.” This framing was dangerous and misleading, given the absence of a refugee law in India and the complex citizenship histories of borderland populations.

Journalists who sought to report independently faced intimidation, arrests, and smear campaigns. The state repeatedly suspended internet access, cutting off communities from communication and depriving journalists of vital tools. Harsh laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were used to suppress dissent. The Tribunal concludes that such practices not only undermined accountability but also enabled violence to spread unchecked.

Case Study: Jiribam, November 2024

The Tribunal highlights Jiribam as a microcosm of the conflict. In November 2024, the killing of two men, the gang rape of a Hmar schoolteacher, and the disappearance of a Meitei family sparked retaliatory violence. The CRPF’s killing of ten Kuki insurgents further escalated tensions. Retaliatory attacks targeted Meitei farmland and houses, deepening displacement and undermining food security.

The Jiribam case illustrates how tit-for-tat dynamics operate in the absence of credible law enforcement. Each incident triggered counter-violence, fuelling a cycle of retaliation. The state’s inability to protect citizens or prosecute perpetrators ensured that impunity became the norm.

State and institutional response

The Tribunal is unequivocal in its conclusion that the State of Manipur failed to uphold constitutional governance. Despite the deployment of over 100,000 security personnel, the state failed to prevent the looting of armouries, protect vulnerable communities, or restore normalcy. Survivors consistently questioned the neutrality of the police and administration, alleging partisan conduct.

The Justice Ajai Lamba Commission and the Gita Mittal Committee were constituted to investigate aspects of the conflict. However, their reports remain unpublished or only partially disclosed, undermining transparency and accountability. The state has also failed to announce any credible plan for rehabilitation, safe return, or reconciliation, leaving displaced populations in limbo.

Risk outlook

The Tribunal warns of two interconnected risks. First, the prolonged residence of IDPs in camps risks cementing ethnic segregation into a permanent reality. Without structured plans for return and rehabilitation, displacement will harden into apartheid-like separation. Second, the continued availability of looted arms and the empowerment of militias sustain the potential for renewed violence. Without disarmament and accountability, Manipur will remain a tinderbox vulnerable to fresh outbreaks.

Recommendations of the Tribunal

The Tribunal’s recommendations span multiple domains. It calls for a Supreme Court–monitored SIT to investigate crimes, supported by witness protection schemes and independent prosecution units. It urges the publication of all reports of the Gita Mittal Committee and the Justice Ajai Lamba Commission. It recommends fast-track courts for conflict-related crimes, especially sexual violence cases.

In terms of relief, the Tribunal calls for a judicially monitored Special Committee to survey camp needs, ensure equitable resource distribution, and prepare time-bound rehabilitation plans. It stresses the importance of reintegrating health services across ethnic lines, embedding trauma care, and protecting mental health. It also insists on an audit of all weapons looted from armouries, the recovery of arms, and the disarmament of militias.

For peacebuilding, the Tribunal recommends inclusive dialogue forums involving women, youth, and faith leaders, truth-telling initiatives, reparations, and the establishment of a National Peace Commission. It proposes the creation of a Manipur Peace Index to monitor progress. In the media domain, it calls for the end of blanket internet shutdowns, protection of journalists, and active monitoring of hate speech. Land and livelihood disputes must be addressed through impartial tribunals and transparent development policies.

Implementation timeline

The Tribunal outlines a phased roadmap. Within 30 days, the Supreme Court should establish an SIT, the state must initiate camp surveys and weapons audits, and all commission reports should be made public. Within 90 days, fast-track courts must begin operations, indictments should be filed in emblematic cases, and healthcare reintegration pilots launched. Within six to twelve months, displaced populations must begin safe return, truth-telling forums must commence, and the first Manipur Peace Index should be published.

Conclusion

The Independent People’s Tribunal provides a damning indictment of governance failure in Manipur. It documents how state institutions enabled impunity, allowed militias to flourish, and abandoned vulnerable communities. At the same time, it provides a roadmap for recovery grounded in constitutional values, transitional justice, and comparative experiences from global conflicts. Unless corrective measures are taken swiftly, Manipur risks becoming a permanently divided society, where segregation and violence replace democracy and rule of law. The urgency of implementation cannot be overstated.

The complete report may be read below.

Related:

Manipur 2023: Violence unaddressed eight months after conflicts erupt

Snapshot of Manipur Govt’s coercive actions against citizens: 2023

When the Manipur High Court stepped in

How and when the Supreme Court moved on Manipur: 2023

The post Broken State, Divided People: PUCL releases report of Independent People’s Tribunal on Manipur appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Thevars [caste Hindus] treat Sikkaliars [Dalits] as slaves so they can utilise them as they wish. They exploit them sexually and make them dig graveyards for high-caste people’s burials. They have to take the death message to Thevars. These are all unpaid services.
— Manibharati, social activist, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu

In the past, twenty to thirty years ago, [Dalits] enjoyed the practice of “untouchability.” In the past, women enjoyed being oppressed by men. They weren’t educated. They didn’t know the world… They enjoy Thevar community men having them as concubines… They cannot afford to react; they are dependent on us for jobs and protection… She wants it from him. He permits it. If he has power, then she has more affection for the landlord.
— A prominent Thevar political leader, Tamil Nadu^[1]

“Dalit” is a term first coined by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the architects of the Indian constitution of 1950 and revered leader of the Dalit movement. It was taken up in the 1970s by the Dalit Panther Movement, which organized to claim rights for “untouchables,” and is now commonly used by rights activists.^[2] Violence against this section of the Indian people, Dalits, who constitute (2011 Census figures) 16.6 per cent of the population is both societal, systemic and instructional cutting through all intersectionality’s. This analysis and graphic visualisation looks at this phenomenon, not contain, today normalised, in 2025.

On June 24, 2025 — The Indian Express reported, “Nine people have been detained after a mob forcibly shaved the heads of two Dalit men and forced them to crawl over allegations of cow smuggling in Odisha’s Ganjam district. According to the police, the victims had bought a cow and two calves and were returning home when a mob accosted them in Kharigumma village under Dharakote police limits and demanded Rs 30,000. When the men expressed inability to pay, the mob allegedly beat them up, forcibly shaved their heads, made them crawl and had them drink sewage water. A video purportedly shows the two men crawling with grass clamped between their teeth as some men follow them. The group also took away cash of Rs 700 from them and their mobile phones, police said.” This is not, unsurprisingly, a stray or isolated event – with CJP recording 113 incidents of anti-Dalit atrocities from the month of January to June.

The all-pervasive caste system has long cemented itself as a fortifying structure of Indian society. With a state machinery that openly runs on a proto-fascist, pro-Hindutva model – the continued marginalisation of Indian minorities has become, in dystopian fashion, extremely normalized in the day-to-day news cycle. This report tries to trace this normalisation by forming understandings of the historical, typological and the systemic nature of the violence enacted upon Dalit and Adivasi/tribal individuals in India by considering data consolidated within the months of January-June.

Historical & Structural Context – Everydayness of Caste Atrocities

One must always remember that caste atrocities in India is not a regime-specific conundrum, and that while there is a strong relationship between the (present, ideologically driven) Hindutva state and the exacerbation of such atrocities — India has had a long, shameful history where the caste system has been entrenched into every facet of living. Ania Loomba, in The Everyday Violence of Caste, writes: “Caste violence in India is one of the most long-standing instances of the routinisation of violence, predating European colonialism although not unshaped by it, and now firmly enmeshed within the new global order. Despite untouchability being constitutionally abolished in 1950, caste oppression is pervasive today. Over 160 million Untouchables- or Dalits- are subject to different forms of discrimination: they are denied access to places of worship, clean water, housing, and land; their children are still kept out of, or ill-treated within, schools; they are forced into menial and degrading occupations, notably manual scavenging; and, despite a governmental policy of affirmative action, they remain largely excluded from the country’s businesses, educational establishments, judicial services, and bureaucracy.1 If violence against lower castes and outcastes is rendered banal by being woven into the fabric of everyday life, it is also conducted via spectacular acts. Dalits are raped and murdered for daring to aspire to land, electricity, drinking water, and to non-Dalit partners. Inter-caste marriages, especially those between lower caste men and women of higher castes, result in murders, kidnapping, and the public punishment of such men and (often) the women involved. Dalit women remain subject to constant sexual assault by upper caste men. In general, caste segregation shapes India’s rural landscape, as well as large parts of its urbanity.”

In Indian society, the entrenched hierarchy of caste is all-pervasive, affecting the lives of Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi individuals – through popular and institutional violence at different scales. This routinization, that Loomba writes about, is a process that has spanned centuries: almost from the birth of Hinduism, as a religion — and therefore, the committing of atrocities has been naturalized into social order. We could invoke Martin Macwan, who rightly wrote, in 2001, “The systematic elimination of six million Jews by Nazis hit us hard on the face because it took place in such a short span of time. In the case of Dalits, though the “genocide” has been systemic, it has taken place at a slow pace. The current government statistics of murder, rape, and assault that Dalits are subjected to paint a horrible picture if extended to a history of 3000 years. We have reason to believe that approximately 2,190,000 Dalits have been murdered, 3,285,000 raped and over 75,000,000 assaulted.”

Methodology and Data Sources

In this report, we use data from CJP’s own database, and from multiple reliable think-tanks, non-governmental organizations, news outlets, legal filings and academic publications. We also take into account cross-verified posts from social media accounts that specialise in hate-watching, reporting on Dalit and Adivasi issues, etc. The data from the National Crime Records Bureau’s own publications has also been used for contextualization.

We have attempted to classify this data on the basis of geography, types of violence, and looked into institutional response: from law enforcement and respective state governments’ attitudes to caste-based violence. The report endeavours to be grounded in intersectionality, taking into account the changing metrics of class and gender, which quite obviously come into play while discussing caste.

Typology of Violence: Key Patterns from 2025

• Violence Against Adivasis and Tribal Populations

Tribal and Adivasi lives have also been rife with violence within the country – being victimised by large scale unrest, institutional crackdowns, and targeted attacks in different parts of the country. While encounters have intensified in the BJP ruled state of Chhattisgarh, and CRPF camps being set-up in the “most vulnerable Maoist locations”, the CPI (Maoist) party has proposed peace talks with the government. This was followed by 200 civil rights groups and individuals urging for the government to show their intent at reaching a ceasefire and some form of agreement. The statement from the signatories of these organizations is as follows,

“It is now exactly 20 years since the state sponsored and now banned Salwa Judum began in Bastar, causing enormous misery in terms of people killed, villages burnt, rapes, starvation, mass displacement and other forms of violence. Since then, the villagers of Bastar have known little peace. They barely returned to their villages when they were faced with Operation Green Hunt and successive operations. Since 2024, under the name of Operation Kagaar, over 400 people have been killed (287 in 2024, 113 in 2025).i While the exact numbers of civilians killed is unknown, given that several of those claimed as Maoists have been identified by villagers as civilians, it is evident that civilians are being disproportionately affected ii. An Article 14 estimate between 2018 and 2022 counts more civilians (335) killed than security personnel (168) and Maoists (327). iii 2024 saw several incidents of children being killed. SATP gives the breakup for 2025 to 15 civilians, 14 security forces and 150 Maoists. The forces have got Rs. 8.24 crore as rewards for these killings.”

Parallely, the centre’s failure at dealing with ethnic clashes in Manipur has drawn widespread criticism from the states – according to Human Rights Watch – at least five people have died and scores injured, including security force members, in recent clashes, alone. On March 8, a man was killed and several were injured in Kangpokpi district when violence broke out after the authorities attempted to restore transportation connections across the state. On March 19, another man was killed following clashes between two tribal communities in the state’s Churachandpur district. The violence, so far, has killed more than 260 people and displaced over 60,000 since May 2023.

Land conflicts have also followed tribal populaces – according to Land Conflict Watch, there are 962 reported ongoing land conflicts in their Conflicts Database. Out of these 116 conflicts are in the Conservatory and Forestry sector, with 459,735 people currently affected. The following charts shows the shares of the kind and numbers of conflict going on in the country, in context of land area and people affected — based on data available from the Conflicts Database of the Land Conflict Watch website.

As mentioned before, while state actors do perpetrate a huge share of the violence borne by the tribal populations in India – this does not mean that they are spared from acts of targeted violence by upper-caste perpetrators.

CJP recorded 74 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India in 2025— out of which, 48 were cases of harassment, assault and violence under the pretext of allegations of conversion. While not all of these were mandated on Adivasi individuals, a bone of contention that the propagators of the formulation of the Hindutva state has with the so called “Christianisation of tribals/Adivasis” has been rooted in ideas of “foreignness”. It is also manifest in the Adivasi v/s Vanvasi formulation, with the RSS and it’s multiple outfits like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram committed to an alteration/manipulation of the pre-Hindu, Adivasi identity, threatened as they are by the ‘original inhabitant’ argument, before the onset and domination of the “Vedic period” in early Indian history.

A recent book, among several earlier studies on the subject, Kamal Nayan Choubey’s Adivasi or Vanvasi-the politics of Hindutva, observes, “Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, popularly known as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram or VKA is the tribal wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). As the largest tribal organization in the country, it works in many areas of Kerala, Jharkhand and the North-east of India. Till the late 1970s, VKA’s work was limited to a few districts of Chhattisgarh (then Madhya Pradesh), Jharkhand (then Bihar), and Odisha but it has gradually and continuously expanded its footprint in different parts of the country…. It is noteworthy that from its inception VKA focused on spreading Hindu values by organizing religious rituals in tribal areas and working in the area of education and hostels.” Academic works and publications on the methods of RSS’ penetration among tribals stress on the Ekal School, an education model that not just imposes “caste Hindu practices” among Adivasis who’s traditional belief systems are animistic, but also instils an element of the “outsider other” when it comes to the Indian religious minority, the Christian or the Muslim.[3] Studies of the syllabus taught in these schools also reveals how the “project was intended to spread disharmony”. Subsequent incidents of targeted violence in several Adivasi-dominated areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh has empirically shown Adivasis adopting an assumed adversarial role against India’s religious minorities.[4][5]

The Washington Post reported in February 2025 about multiple grassroots evangelical pursuits of the grassroots organizations of the far Hindu right, under the pretext of developmental work – has been trying to induct millions of tribal people who have been outside mainstream religion, or are Christians. All of this is conducive to the central ahistorical one-dimensional belief that the converted Adivasi has been stolen away from the “homogenised Hindu original-state” — ignoring all dimensions of oppression, dynamics of caste and struggle, and presenting a dichotomy of the “homegrown” Hinduism and the “foreign” Christianity – ignoring the neo-colonial model that has been replicated by Hindutva outfits. Satianathan Clarke writes for the Harvard Theological Review, “First, Christians, through their sustained service among the Adivasis, “enjoy considerable appreciation of and support for their work from the local population.”37 This presents an obstacle for the Hindutva organizations to infiltrate the Adivasi areas. “The advance of the Parivar [Network of Hindutva organizations] in the tribal area is, therefore, possible only if the Christians are discredited and displaced.” Second, Christians are targeted because of the secular position they have increasingly taken over the last decade. In the context of Hindu communalism’s fascist potential, Christians present a counter model in their “reaching out to secular, liberal and Left formations for joint initiative.” Christianity, especially among Dalits and Adivasis, must be stopped at any cost from being presented as an alternative option to Hindutva. Panikkar’s discussion, I believe, is in line with my claim that Christians are being persecuted because their work among the Dalits and Adivasis is perceived as an effort to thwart the homogenizing aim of Hindutva.”

Besides these, there have been incidents of harassment, and torture, where tribal women have been gang raped, Adivasi people repeatedly subjected to humiliation and assault at the hands of upper caste individuals and community members.

Anti-Dalit Violence

Between the months of January and June, CJP recorded 113 incidents of caste atrocities on Dalit individuals across different states in India. A general categorisation of this violence can be seen as follows.

This chart tells us that out of the 113 cases, assaults had the highest rate of incidence – with a combined percentage of 25.9% [Assault and Assault with the intent of humiliation, combined], followed by high rates of harassment in the form of discrimination – and finally, more grievously, murder and sexual violence – at 20.5% and 18.8% respectively. What is essential for us to remember, is the fact that caste atrocities cannot be neatly separated in clinically placed boxes of violence. Each category is deeply inter-related with the others, and Dalit people, as individuals and as collectives, go through multiple enactments of violence.

Snigdha Adil writes, “The confluence of the material (the body) and the symbolic (language) suggests that the recurrent embodied experiences of exclusions manifest on the caste body and are consequently, articulated; these orations, then, reproduce marginalisation in the lived reality. Such rhetoric is internalised by the Dalit individual, and imposes a state of humiliation and self-loathing upon them. Chakrabarty asserts that the Dalit person’s sense of their body is refracted through a third-person consciousness; it is impossible for the Dalit individual to imagine a reprieve from the corporal schema of degradation that is imposed upon it by the ‘upper’-castes. The process of discrimination as it is enacted against the body and, thereby, shapes (or contorts) it entails the construction of the Dalit (non-)self. To comprehensively understand the agents and methodologies of discrimination within the context of modernity – which is characterised by social mobility through urbanisation, education, and employment opportunities beyond the caste-specific occupational fields – as opposed to the feudal past, one must adopt an archaeological approach towards an understanding of the practice of Untouchability. The camouflage of caste discrimination into innocuous practices to detect and distance the ‘lower’-caste individual despite the external performance of progressive beliefs unveils the “inalterability of the ‘Indian mind’” (Archaeology of Untouchability 219). As one is compelled to operate in ambiguous spaces of social exchange wherein the identity of those one engages with is unknown, exacerbated by the need to concomitantly maintain a façade of transcendence from outdated religious codes as well as the superiority of the self; one must evolve new codes and signifiers that accommodate plausible deniability. … In the same vein, it may be argued that the social, material, and personal deprivation of Dalits is not inherent but maintained through the performance of caste practices and symbols.”

Therefore, we can also make two conclusions from what Adil writes, and a historical study of Brahminical violence on Dalit communities: one, that the nature of attacks is aimed to be a debilitating force on the dignities and the abilities— because the intent behind these attacks is to impinge upon the Dalit sense of self and identity – both individual and communal. Two, the style and the formations of attacks have modified themselves over time while maintaining the same antediluvian spirit of oppression – manifesting through different forms of ostracisation, causation of humiliation, and outright physical and psychological violence.

Structural and systemic violence, cultural and symbolic assertion, physical and sexual violence, caste slurs and verbal abuse, exclusion and boycott are all different forms of atrocities affecting Dalit individuals in India. If we were to look at the data for just the month of June, we would see that all of them can be put into the aforementioned “categories”, or exist at the intersections between two or many of them.

1st June, 2025: A Dalit family was attacked by a group of men with sticks and rods during a wedding ceremony on Friday night, police said. The attackers reportedly shouted caste-based insults, angry that a Dalit family was using a marriage hall in Rasra, Uttar Pradesh. Raghvendra Gautam, the brother of one of the injured men, filed the police complaint. He said, “We were celebrating happily when suddenly a group of men stormed in and shouted, ‘How can Dalits hold a wedding in a hall?’ Then they started beating everyone.” The attack happened at the Swayamvar Marriage Hall around 10:30 p.m. Two people, Ajay Kumar and Manan Kant, were badly hurt and are now in the hospital.

June 1, 2025: A minor Dalit girl who was raped and found with nearly 20 knife wounds in Muzaffarpur died at the Patna Medical College and Hospital on Sunday, June 1, 2025. The 11-year-old was transferred to Patna on Saturday for better medical treatment, but was allegedly left in pain inside the ambulance outside the Patna hospital for about five hours, and was admitted after intervention by Bihar Congress president.

 June 4, 2025: A Tribal woman was gang-raped and then her intestines were pulled out by inserting hands in her rectum, incident happened in Khandwa city of Madhya Pradesh.

June 10, 2025: Dhanush, a Dalit youth employed in an IT firm in Coimbatore, was reportedly in a relationship with a woman from a different religion. He was found hanging at his lover’s residence.

June 18, 2025: Due to not being able to repay a loan of 80 thousand, a Dalit woman was tied to a tree, humiliated and beaten in front of her own child, the child will not be able to forget this shock for the rest of his life, the incident is from Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh. The woman’s husband has left her, she has the responsibility of two children, she earns her living by working as a daily wage labourer.

June 20, 2025: On Sunday, A Dalit teenager who dared to ask for ration was shot dead in broad daylight in Bilhari village in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. His brother, Ashish, who had accompanied him, was also injured. 

June 22, 2025: The incident occurred in Dadrapur village, within the limits of Bakewar Police Station, where a group of Brahmin men attacked a Katha Vachak (religious preacher) and his aides for organising Baagavat Katha in the village after discovering that he belongs to a lower caste.”

June 22, 2025: A 13-year-old patient from Meerut admitted to the orthopaedics ward at a top hospital in the city, was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 20-year-old man inside the women’s washroom around 1 am on Sunday. The girl, a Dalit, was being treated for knock knees, and was accompanied by her mother at the facility’s general ward.

June 22, 2025: At a hospital in an Andhra Pradesh district, a 15-year-old girl, almost eight months pregnant, spends her days in a 150-bed ward, surrounded by expectant mothers and wailing infants. Authorities have deemed it dangerous to terminate her pregnancy at this stage, and say sending her home is not an option either – the teenager is the victim of sexual abuse over two years by 14 men, who are from an influential community in the village where the crimes took place.

June 22, 2025: “A shocking incident of caste-based violence has emerged from Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, where members belonging to the Bahujan community were severely assaulted by upper caste men, who brutalised them and forcefully tonsured their hair, urinated on them, for taking part in a religious event.

June 23, 2025: Two Dalit men were allegedly subjected to brutal physical and psychological abuse in Kharigumma village under Dharakote block in Ganjam district.

June 24, 2025: “Dalit assistant professor Dr Ravi has allegedly faced caste discrimination after the principal at SV Veterinary University’s Dairy Technology College in Andhra Pradesh removed the chair from his office, forcing him to work while sitting on the floor. He alleged that he was on leave on Thursday, and when he returned to the college on Friday and went to his room, he found that there was no chair. Associate Dean Ravindra Reddy, who had come to test the milk in the existing device, had removed the chair from his room.”

June 26, 2025: Nearly All Students Withdrawn from Karnataka School After Dalit Woman Appointed Head Cook. “In a shocking incident from Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district, a 60-year-old differently abled Dalit woman was allegedly raped and robbed by a known history sheeter. The accused, identified as 23-year-old Fairoz Yasin Yaragatti, was later shot in the leg by police during an encounter”

June 27, 2025: On Friday, members of the family were sowing seeds in their land in Narayanapura village of Madhya Pradesh’s Lateri tehsil when some people, allegedly from the Gurjar community, attacked them. The men not only beat up members of the family, including two women, but also snatched their soybean seeds and sowed them in their own field.

Jyoti D. Bhosale, in The Intensification of the Caste Divide: Increasing Violence on the Dalits in Neoliberal India, [emphasis ours] writes, “The increased physical infliction of violence on the Dalits, apart from simply being the perception of threat, is a reactionary response to prevailing psyche steeped in prejudice and caste arrogance and are expressions of retention of privileged positions within the caste order, in spite of long drawn resistance and constitutional efforts against the same. In their study of Bhumihars (landowning caste) and caste violence in Bihar, Nandan and Santosh (2019) argue that in the context of the crumbling down of traditional mode of dominance through upper-caste identity and feudal agrarian structure, and also with the increased representation of OBCs and other lower castes, the goalpost of the Bhumihars has shifted. It has now become that of establishing themselves not as perpetrators of violence but as guardians of Hindutva which also protects their caste identity. They thus resort to ‘symbolic’ violence towards the lower castes, while on the ‘enemies’ of Hindu right-wing ideology, overt violence is inflicted. Can the quantitative reduction of incidents of bodily violence itself account for decreased brutality against the Dalits? Numerous incidents of violence such as Tsundur massacre (1991); Bara massacre (1992); Bathani Tola massacre (1996); Melavalavu violence (1997); Laxmanpur Bathe massacre (1997); Ramabai Killings(1997); Bhungar Khera incident (1999); Kambalapalli violence (2000); Khairlanji massacre (2006); gangrape of Sumanbalai (2009); Mirchpur killings (2010); Dharmapuri violence (2012); Marakkanam violence (2013); Dangawas violence (2015); Ariyalur gangrape (2016); Kanchanatham temple violence (2018); Hathras gangrape and murder (2020) are amongst the very many clear cases of explicit brutality. These challenge the underlying liberal presumption prevalent across social sciences that with progression in time, democratization etc, societies become more civil. There is evidence to say that with such progression, cruelty may not just continue but also sharpen (Rushe and Kirchheimer 2003).

Thus, it will not be erroneous to state that these enactments of violence are located at the juncture of asserting caste-pride, and the violent need to humiliate and assert dominance through forms that adapt and reinvent themselves with the passage of time.

Sexual Violence

Amidst the different forms of violence enacted upon Dalit and Adivasi people, sexual violence happens to be one of the foremost ones.

Sourik Biswas writes for the BBC, “These [Dalit] women, who comprise about 16% of India’s female population, face a “triple burden” of gender bias, caste discrimination and economic deprivation. “The Dalit female belongs to the most oppressed group in the world,” says Dr Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters. “She is a victim of the cultures, structures and institutions of oppression, both externally and internally. This manifests in perpetual violence against Dalit women.” Out of the 113 incidents recorded by CJP, 29 were acts of sexual violence. Approximately 10 rape cases are reported every day when it comes to Dalit women.

Manisha Mashaal, the founder of Swabhiman Society, told Equality Now that one of the biggest challenges in cases of sexual violence is that survivors or the families are pressured into compromises with the accused. Community and social pressure plays a major role in impeding access to justice in such cases. Another issue is the lack of quality and effective systems in place to provide the survivors of violence and their families with immediate social, legal, and mental health support along with proper and timely rehabilitation. This pattern of violence also translates to Adivasi women – even intensifying, with the stereotyping of these women as “promiscuous” and an allotted sexual availability – which ultimately reduces them to fetishized commodities. While Behanbox, upon perusal of a report ‘Beyond Rape: Examining The Systemic Oppression Leading To Sexual Violence Against Adivasi Women’ – found that while the two-finger test that checks the hymen and its rupturing has been outlawed by the Supreme Court, in almost 15 of the 32 cases studied had the victims go through them.

It found that according to the National Crime Bureau Report (2022), a total of 10,064 cases were registered for crimes against Scheduled Tribes (STs), an increase of 14.3 per cent over 2021 (8,802 cases). The crime rate increased from 8.4 per cent in 2021 to 9.6 per cent in 2022. The report reveals that 1,347 cases of rape and 1022 cases of assault on Adivasi/Tribal women were reported in 2022.

Mapping Caste Atrocities and Socio-Political Dynamics

The 113 cases that CJP documented were spread out all over the country– which you can see in this map– although some states emerged as hotspots.

As displayed above, the worst offending states were Uttar Pradesh (34 cases), Madhya Pradesh (15), and Tamil Nadu (8). This calculation tracks with NCRB data that the Deccan Herald reported, “About 97.7 per cent of all cases of atrocities against SCs in 2022 were reported from 13 states, with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh recording the highest number of such crimes, according to a new government report … Of 51,656 cases registered under the law for Scheduled Castes (SCs) in 2022, Uttar Pradesh accounted for 23.78 per cent of the total cases with 12,287, followed by Rajasthan at 8,651 (16.75 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh at 7,732 (14.97 per cent).”

This intensity of caste-based violence in states is deeply reflective of the social structures present within these states and their respective hierarchies.

In Uttar Pradesh, the last caste census was conducted in 1931. According to the data from this census, it was found that only 9.2% of the population was composed of Brahmins, while 7.2% was made up of Rajputs (Thakurs). Sudhir Hindwan’s CASTE AND CLASS VIOLENCE IN THE INDIAN STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH – the intermediary (backward) castes made up about 42 per cent of the population, the scheduled castes 21 per cent and Muslims 15 per cent. While no caste census details are available after that, estimations based on the data from the 2011 census leads us to believe that the 20% of the “forward caste” demographic are composed by the 12% of the populace who are Brahmins, and the remaining 8 the Rajputs.

A report from the policy research lab of Jindal Global University found that out of the 80 constituencies in the state, 23 of the dominant general caste constituencies have representatives from the respective castes, thus indicating a 100% rate of correlation when it comes to caste identity and election of representation. The report states, “Whereas there were 15 constituencies who have OBC as their dominant caste and their MP too comes from the OBC. On the other hand, there are 3 constituencies where Muslims are dominant, and the winning candidate too comes from the same … Out of the 19 winning candidates who won the 2024 parliamentary elections and come from the scheduled caste background, 17 came from those seats which were reserved for the scheduled caste in the elections, thus out of 80 there were only 2 seats where the winning candidate was from the scheduled caste and the seat was not reserved. This highlights the social disparity that persists within the political and social realm of UP.” The maps pictured here represent this disparity when it comes to the distribution of political power among different caste compositions in Uttar Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh reflects a similar vein of absences. For the 2023 state legislative elections, The Print found on a fieldwork based investigation that the now-ruling party of the state, BJP, had given 34% (79) of its tickets to upper caste candidates, followed by 30% to Backward Classes (69) — while only providing the Scheduled Tribe and the Scheduled Caste candidates 21% (47) and 15% (35) of its tickets — despite being the state with the largest number of tribes. It is also to be remembered that none of these tickets were given to candidates in unreserved constituencies.

This preference given to the provision of tickets to non-Dalit candidates translated in the poll results. The Hindu reported, “Despite its rhetoric over the question of caste census, Congress failed to make a dent in the OBC vote. Thus, BJP’s landslide victory was shaped by an accretion from most social sections, including the OBCs of Madhya Pradesh. Besides consolidating among its upper caste voter base, the BJP this time managed to attract more OBCs and Adivasis compared to 2018.

The Congress stayed significantly ahead of the BJP among SC communities, while other parties bagged 16%. The BSP polled 19% of the Jatav votes; with the Congress securing almost half the Jatav votes. Among the tribal voters, the Congress maintained an advantage over the BJP. The vote share was the closest among the Bhil community with a difference of only 4% between the Congress and BJP. The Congress secured half or more of the votes of other tribal communities; while the BJP managed more than a third of the votes. Congress did get overwhelming support among Muslims, though their population in the State is barely 7%—hardly enough to help the Congress make an impact. As mentioned above, with BJP gaining among Upper Castes, the Congress found very thin support among these sections, including the Rajputs, compared to 2018. In conclusion, it is clear that the BJP has consolidated its traditional upper caste vote bank, along with making significant inroads into the OBC communities in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress’s vote among the SC, ST and minority communities is not large enough to match the BJP’s social bloc.”

Tamil Nadu: Exceptional Violence

Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, has been known for fostering caste-consciousness from time immemorial. The private sphere is an example – where the National Family Health Survey data suggested that the state had one of the lowest rates of inter-caste marriages, only reaching a meagre 2.59%. The state also has the highest number of consanguineous marriages, with a whopping 28% share, as opposed to the national average of 11%. In a report on caste-based tensions in two villages in Tirunelveli, ThePrint reported, “Students wear coloured T-shirts inside their school uniform, which also refer to their caste identity. Sometimes, those T-shirts will also have the image of leaders of their communities,” said the headmaster of a government school in Madurai, who did not wish to be named … “In the village, we reside in Dalit colonies and they reside in the Upper Caste streets. So, once we get into the school, this segregation remains the same; they don’t sit next to us or mingle with us,” said a Class 10 student of a state-run school in Tirunelveli district.”

As the state gears up for the 2026 elections, one sees the carrying over of trends from 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as the BJP tries to shed its image as a Brahminical party in the state, and makes alliances and coalitions with smaller caste-based parties for greater parties. South First reports, “Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK, despite its anti-caste image, continues to partner with the KMDK, a regional ally whose leaders have made inflammatory caste-based remarks. The DMK’s support for KMDK-led cultural events, such as Valli Kummi performances, is seen as a move to win over the influential Kongu Vellalar Gounder community. Critics say the alliance highlights a growing ideological dissonance, where electoral calculus increasingly trumps the party’s professed commitment to social justice.” Many political theorists, like TN Raghu, have pointed out that the DMK and the AIADMK are two sides of the same coin – where they have alienated their rooting in Periyar’s anti-caste politics for vote banking strategies. Raghu told SF, “Whether in power or not, DMK has never really raised its voice against the dominant castes. Take for instance the honour killing of Sankar and the struggles of Kausalya – DMK never staged major protests or spearheaded movements around such incidents. They fear that aggressively opposing caste oppression will alienate majority caste voters. Often this silence is justified as political strategy … In elections, it is almost like a competition between DMK and AIADMK – who can stay more silent about caste issues and thereby win more votes from caste-dominant Hindu communities.”

Law Enforcement Failures

While most of these cases have never had any political leadership comment anything reformist, or acknowledge the depth of the rot in each state – the police have been equally responsible in lackadaisical delivery of judgement, if not perpetrating the very same violence in themselves. Out of the 113 cases calibrated by CJP when it comes to anti-Dalit atrocities, 9 were cases where the police directly were violent towards the victims, 6 were cases where no action was undertaken, and 5 were cases where it was unclear if a report was filed. Out of the remaining 92 cases where action was undertaken – there were 4 cases where the action undertaken was merely conducive to procedure and not actual ensuring of justice.

This tracks with NCRB data, which states that 12,159 cases of atrocities against STs were pending investigation, and a total of 2,63,512 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) while 42,512 cases of atrocities against STs went for trial. Conviction percentage under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 in conjunction with the Indian Penal Code (IPC) remained at 36 per cent for SCs and 28.1 per cent for STs. At the end of the year, 96 per cent of cases of atrocities against SCs were pending trial whereas, for STs, the percentage stood at 95.49.

GC Pal, in Caste and Consequences: Looking through the Lens of Violence, writes, “As caste relations are rooted in the social structure, caste traditions and the advent of modernity together produce a new ‘coalition’ between dominant caste perpetrators and the classes (powerful members from their caste groups in community and also from administration). The social status of the accused and its association with larger ‘social class’ plays a significant role in course of access to justice. Overwhelming caste loyalties and sentiments influence the decisions of the personnel in administration and judiciary. Moreover, the administration being represented majorly by the dominant caste members very often show apathy towards the complaints. In this regard, Ambedkar (1989) is of the view that: ‘When law enforcement agency- the police and the judiciary, does not seem to be free from caste prejudice- since they are very much part of the same caste ridden society- expecting law to ensure justice to victims of caste crimes is rather an impractical solution to this perennial social problem.’ That is why, he emphasises that the presence of elaborate legal provisions may not always guarantee rights to social justice, it necessarily depends upon the nature and character of the civil services who administer the principle…‘If the civil services, by reason of its class bias, is in favour of the established social order in which the principle of equality had no place, the new order in the form of equal justice can never come into being’ (ibid)”

Conclusion

This report details the deep rot within the Indian socio-polity, and its exacerbation by the current Hindutva machinery, ideologically driven with accompanying violence against targeted sections as a key tool for penetration. Dalits are one such target.

The way forward, would perhaps be rooting policy action in accountability and welfare, then just vote bank strategy. Over the years, multiple judicial decisions have weakened the PoA, with judgements refusing to grant caste slurs “prima facie value” – when not made in “public view”.

According to Equality Now, the NCWL’s recommendations to India’s Central Government and State Governments outline steps duty-bearers should take to protect Dalit women and girls from sexual violence, and ensure justice and protection:

• Incorporate and effectively implement the abolition of caste-based discrimination and patriarchy in national-level law and policy;
• Recognise Dalit women as a distinct social group; develop and implement policies specifically focused on advancing their rights, wellbeing, equal standing, and protection within the law;
• Produce and disseminate disaggregated data on the status of Dalit women, particularly in government plans and development programmes; address intersectional forms of discrimination throughout the criminal justice system;
• Ensure full and strict implementation of existing legal protections, particularly the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the timely investigation and disposal of cases of violence against Dalit women and girls;
• Organise, support and fund community-based education, legal literacy and training programmes that improve understanding of intersectional discrimination and violence, including combating casteist and sexist stereotypes amongst criminal justice system officials; empower Dalit communities to better understand their legal and constitutional rights;
• Recognise that economic dependence is a significant reason behind Dalit women not filing police complaints; deliver a national plan with separate funding aimed at accelerating efforts to reduce the poverty gap between Dalit communities and the general population;
• Ensure Dalit survivors who report sexual violence are legally protected by the state from retaliation by the accused; prevent further violence targeting them, such as through social boycotts, and impose restrictions on these;
• Provide Dalit survivors and family members with immediate and longer-term assistance including medical aid, free legal aid, psycho-social support services and counselling, and quality, holistic rehabilitation.

Key to these systemic changes is acknowledgement of the deep-rootedness of the problem. Indian society and politics, resistant and rigid against such self-scrutiny when it comes to caste bias and communalism, has remained obdurate in its inability internalise this malaise. Until that happens, any measures taken to address the issue could remain palliative.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this graphic visualisation report has been worked on by Saptaparma Samajdar)

Sources

1. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/dalit-men-tonsured-forced-crawl-cow-smuggling-allegations-odisha-10083930/
2. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/606848/pdf
3. http://www.india-seminar.c0m/2001/508/508%20martin%20macwan.htm.
4. https://thewire.in/rights/maoists-government-dialogue-plea-salwa-judum-chhattisgarh-adivasi
5. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/27/india-ethnic-clashes-restart-manipur
6. https://www.landconflictwatch.org/all-conflicts
7. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/abs/hindutva-religious-and-ethnocultural-minorities-and-indianchristian-theology/E61809FF5F9D5A78D9E9A6E817226B39
8. https://syahissc.wordpress.com/2023/12/10/the-banality-of-caste-recognising-caste-through-concealment-narratives/
9. https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/araucaria/article/view/27036/24166
10. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-54418513
11. https://equalitynow.org/press_release/india_caste_system_preventing_justice_nov2020/
12. https://www.ncwl.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BEYOND-RAPEv1.0.pdf
13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48504938
14. https://jgu.edu.in/jsgp/jindal-policy-research-lab/caste-and-victory-uttar-pradesh-analysis/
15. https://theprint.in/opinion/bjps-madhya-pradesh-candidate-list-lacks-obc-representation-congress-can-best-it/1837583/
16. https://www.thehindu.com/elections/madhya-pradesh-assembly/the-role-of-castes-and-communities-in-madhya-pradesh-vote-share/article67611007.ece
17. https://theprint.in/india/not-just-wristbands-life-in-tamil-nadu-schools-is-caste-coded-punishments-to-t-shirts/2160880
18. https://www.ncwl.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BEYOND-RAPEv1.0.pdf
19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48644566?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A822b3e6ad5e2a5029ebffd9856f2a875&initiator=recommender&seq=7
20. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/not-every-insult-against-scst-persons-can-be-considered-as-offence-under-scst-protection-law-says-supreme-court/article68559244.ece
21. https://equalitynow.org/news/press-releases/indias_government_must_do_more_to_end_caste_based_sexual_violence_say_dalit_womens_rights_activists/
22. https://www.9dashline.com/article/narrating-violence-is-hindutva-responsible-for-violence-against-indias-christians
23. https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/hindutva-groups-increase-attacks-on-india-s-christian-school/
24. https://theprint.in/india/adivasi-identity-st-status-politics-whats-fuelling-anti-christian-attacks-in-chhattisgarh/1305275/

[1] From Human Rights Watch’s pathbreaking 1999 Report, Broken People. These quotations are from: 1 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat, July 23, 1998. See explanation of manual scavenging below in the Summary and in Chapter VII. 2 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, February 17, 1998. 3 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai city, Tamil Nadu, February 18, 1998. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-02.htm#P350_19723

[2] “Dalit” is a term first coined by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the architects of the Indian constitution of 1950 and revered leader of the Dalit movement. It was taken up in the 1970s by the Dalit Panther Movement, which organized to claim rights for “untouchables,” and is now commonly used by rights activists.

[3] https://www.amazon.in/Adivasi-Vanvasi-Tribal-Politics-Hindutva/dp/0143470485 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09731849241260929;

[4] A Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and headed by Avdhash Kaushal reported on Ekal Vidyalaya schools in the Singhbhum district in Jharkhand and in the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts in Assam. The Committee’s report, submitted to the MHRD in 2005, brings out the communalisation that is rampant in these schools and in their curriculum and textual materialsThe teacher at the Ekal Vidyalaya in Chirchi in Tantnagar block, Singhbhum district, proudly claimed that rather than imparting alphabetical knowledge, he was more intent on protecting “Hindu culture”. He also boasted of his role along with other colleagues in the illegal destruction of a half-built church in the village in 2002. The report states: “The training to the teachers of Ekal schools was mainly to spread communal disharmony in the communities and also to inculcate a fundamentalist political ideology… creating enmity amongst communities on the basis of religion.” The complete report, ‘Final Report on the field visit and observations of Mr Avdhash Kaushal for Singhbhum district in Jharkhand and Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts in Assam’, can be accessed at: http://www.sabrang.com/khoj/ekal_report.pdf

[5] MS Golwalkar, the chief ideologue of the RSS had espoused in We or Our Nationhood Defined, “…only those movements are true ‘National’ that aims at re-building, re-vitalising and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation. Those only are nationalist patriots, who, with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are eithertraitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots…outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving of no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements (Christians and Muslims), either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities’ problem’; https://sabrangindia.in/document/we-or-our-nationhood-defined-1947-edition/

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CJP approached the commission under Article 338(5)(a) and (b) of the Constitution, which mandates the National Commission for Scheduled Castes to investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards provided for the Scheduled Castes under the Constitution or under any other law, and to inquire into specific complaints with respect to the deprivation of rights and safeguards of the Scheduled Castes.

The complaint meticulously lists of 30 numerous atrocities from April to June 2025, primarily from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. These incidents range from horrific sexual assaults, including rape and gang-rape of minor Dalit girls and women, to brutal murders, physical violence, and public humiliation. Instances include a deaf and mute Dalit girl being raped in Rampur, a 10-year-old boy brutally murdered in Etah, and a Dalit groom being beaten and forced off his horse in Agra.

Beyond physical violence, the complaint highlights social discrimination, such as Dalits being denied cremation rights, barred from temple entry, and subjected to casteist slurs. These incidents reveal a deeply ingrained prejudice that continues to inflict severe trauma and deny basic human rights. CJP’s filing with the NCSC is a crucial step towards seeking accountability for perpetrators and ensuring justice and protection for the marginalised Dalit community, emphasising the urgent need for stringent action and systemic change.

Widespread crimes against SCs violating the PoA Act and Civil Rights

CJP Stated in its complaint that, these incidents directly contravene the spirit and letter of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and more critically, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST PoA Act), which specifically aims to prevent atrocities against Scheduled Castes and to provide for special courts for the trial of such offenses and for relief and rehabilitation of the victims. The recurring nature of these incidents, especially the widespread instances of sexual violence and physical attacks, highlights a severe lapse in the implementation and enforcement of these crucial legislations.

Summary of the Incidents Reported

Targeted crimes against SCs, a pattern of abuse

Through complaint, CJP highlights that systemic, widespread incidents of caste-driven oppression that are prevalent countrywide, across states governed by different political dispensations pointing to a deep-rooted societal malaise that has not only acquired a frightening level of ‘normalised violence and oppression’ but also is ‘allowed because of structured levels of immunity’. While some measure of space and political representation has been ensured due to the affirmative action of reservations, even decades after independence, the Dalits have not achieved total emancipation. Even today, Dalits continue to be vulnerable to such attacks which are not just violent in nature but also emerge from trivial social stigma.

CJP also stated in its complaint that as per the NCRB report, there are a total of 70,818 cases of atrocities against SCs and 12,159 against STs that remained pending for investigation at the end of the year 2021. A total of 2,63,512 cases of SCs and 42,512 cases of STs were placed for trial in the courts. At the end of the year, more than 96 percent of the total cases were still pending for trial. Though the charge-sheeting percentage was more than 80%, but the conviction rate remained below 40%.

Legal issues and violations involved in anti-Dalits crimes

CJP mentioned in its complaint that the pervasive nature of these incidents highlights a profound and alarming issue: the persistent and egregious violation of the fundamental rights of Scheduled Castes. These crimes are not isolated, but rather represent a systemic failure to protect a vulnerable population, often underpinned by deeply entrenched caste-based discrimination.

Such acts directly violate various provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (PoA Act), specifically Sections 3(1) and 3(2). These sections criminalise intentional insults, intimidation with intent to humiliate, caste-name abuse in public view, and obstruction of access to common property resources or public places.

Furthermore, the willful neglect of duties by public servants, particularly police officers, is a direct violation of Section 4(1) of the PoA Act, and potentially Sections 198 and 120 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 for public servants disobeying the law or voluntarily causing hurt to extort confessions, as CJP added

Prayers of CJP for intervention

In light of these distressing facts, CJP urgently implores the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to take immediate and decisive action. The primary prayers include mandatory registration and monitoring of FIRs, directing DGPs of affected states (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra) to provide exhaustive reports on incident status, ensuring proper legal sections, and immediate registration of new FIRs where needed. CJP also seeks independent, impartial, and expeditious investigations with active NCSC monitoring, calling for Special Investigation Teams (SITs) and regular progress reports.

Crucially, it requests mandatory suspension and departmental proceedings against negligent public servants under the SC/ST (PoA) Act, emphasising accountability. Furthermore, CJP prays for the immediate and comprehensive provision of compensation, protection, and rehabilitation for victims and their families, ensuring medical, psychological, and legal aid.

Finally, CJP urges the NCSC to issue special, binding guidelines and advisories for prevention, including identifying atrocity-prone areas, mandating sensitisation training for police, establishing mechanisms for action against delinquent officials, and fostering public awareness and community engagement. The NCSC’s robust intervention is paramount to secure justice and deter future atrocities.

Related

CJP files complaint with NCSC, 11 anti-Dalit incidents highlighted since July 2023

CJP informs NCSC of Bihar police beating up minor Dalit boys for celebrating Holi; seeks action

CJP moves NCSC for protection for family of Dalit boy

The post Dalit Justice Demanded: CJP exposes 30 brutal anti-Dalits atrocities, urges NCSC to confront nationwide caste violence under Article 338 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Targeted Violence in April and May

In the months of April and May, CJP documented 180 instances of targeted violence against Indian Muslims post the Pahalgam attack. Of these, 77 took place in April, and 103 in May. These spanned from outright cases of murder (3 specific instances, 3 victims) to nearly 99 cases of hate speech (made by politicians, proponents of Hindutva and other individuals and organisations with affiliations to the Hindu-right). The attacks spiked between April 23 and 25 (10, 12 and 18 cases respectively), following a near-steady course of events right through May. The following is a visualisation of this pattern of violence across the month.

Graph representing number of incidences of communal violence in relation to time

CJP is dedicated to finding and bringing to light instances of Hate Speech, so that the bigots propagating these venomous ideas can be unmasked and brought to justice. To learn more about our campaign against hate speech, please become a member. To support our initiatives, please donate now!

These attacks were spread out across India, as demonstrated by this map – although they were majorly spatially concentrated in northern and central India – with Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana being the 5 worst offenders – with 29, 28, 22, 21 and 10 instances respectively.

Pie-chart representing the percentage of targeted violence per-state

Many (at least 66 out of 180 incidents had the assailants referring to the Pahalgam attack or accusing the victims of allegiance to Pakistan, thus directly relating it to the same and the state’s narrativisation of the violence – thus bringing up the percentage to 36.66%. This does not obviously include incidents which did not have the perpetrators bringing up the attack or alluding some association to it, although, in most cases one can make the assumption that the spike in attacks is related to the perception of the attack) of these incidents were direct outcomes of the Pahalgam attack, with many of the perpetrators citing it as the reason for the same.

A chilling example would be the video of a man claiming responsibility for the killing of a young Muslim man, who was shot dead near a restaurant located on Shilpgram Road in Tajganj police station area, in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. The man in the video identifies himself as a member of ‘Kshatriya Gauraksha Dal’. “Bharat Mata ki saugandh, 26 ka badla agar 2,600 se na liya toh mei Bharat Mata ka putr nahi, Jai shri Ram, Jai Hindu Rashtra, Bharat Mata ki Jai”, the man is heard saying. The two men have knives and a pistol tucked inside their waist. Reacting to the viral video, Agra Police said, “Regarding the viral video on social media, it is to be informed that no organization named Kshatriya Gau Raksha Dal is working in Agra.”

This recent spike in attacks on India’s religious minorities must be contextualized — there is an establishment of a “new normal”. This systemic violent targeting of India’s Muslims (and Christians) can be traced back to 2014, when a new avatar of the Bharatiya Janata Party assumed control at the centre. The Centre for Study of Society and Secularism writes, “Historically, communal riots often involved groups from two religious communities clashing, with both sides inflicting and suffering losses … However, in recent years, the nature of larger riots has shifted. Instead of clashes between two communities, many significant riots now involve state actions disproportionately targeting the Muslim community. These actions include using bulldozers to demolish properties owned by Muslims, causing significant economic damage. Additionally, the state has slapped cases and implicated the members of the Muslim community, even in instances where they are victims of violence during communal riots. The disproportionate and seemingly one-sided state action has led to social discord, communal consciousness, and polarization. This atmosphere of communal tension has been steadily intensifying over recent years. For instance, the Pew Research Center, a respected research institution, categorized India in 2022 as “very high” on its Social Hostilities Index (SHI), with a score of 9.3. Social hostilities index (SHI) factors in levels of religion-related harassment, mob violence, terrorism, militant activity, and conflicts over religious conversions or the use of religious symbols and attire.” This also tracks with the India Hate Lab report, which stated that there was a 74.4% surge in hate speech in 2024, driven by the BJP, Hindutva outfits, and unchecked social media amplification.

Media, politics, and the act of communalisation

India has noticed a growing entrenchment of the systematisation of communalism and ensuing violence over the last decade. However, this is not a singular event that has stemmed from uniquely specific factors. This is a product of the country’s long history of communal tensions and Hindutva outfits’ responsibility in stoking the fires in ensuring that said tensions evolve into deeper, more dangerous rifts whose brunt is borne by the Muslim civilians in the country. Tanika Sarkar, well-known intellectual and former professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University – who has written largely on Indian politics, society and religion, told DW, a global news TV program broadcast by German public state-owned international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). “What happens is that war does not immediately translate into violence at home but it translates into very bitter memories and histories and allegations. I don’t know how it is on the Pakistani side, I suppose very much the same thing … In the latest conflict in particular, India’s news channels did not help. Between May 8 and May 10, some of the most viewed channels reported sensational, unverified information which later turned out to be false. That, coupled with messages circulated on WhatsApp, created an environment of fear. This is a situation where you can’t believe or disbelieve anything. And in that situation if you are so minded, then you will start looking at every Muslim with suspicion … Even if these attacks aren’t the norm, they create a psyche of fear in the hearts of every Muslim who lives in India.” CJP has, in a sustained campaign, complained against such media outlets and is pursuing some of these cases with the NBDSA even now.

What Sarkar mentions needs to be highlighted, because Indian news media has attained a near vitriolic status when it comes to war-mongering and proselytizing Islamophobia. TV anchors called for “Israel-like final solutions” and repeatedly attempted to mobilize public opinion against a possible ceasefire. The attitude of the unprofessional conduct of entrenched electronic media channels was a subject matter of comment on international media. Political commentators trying to provide more nuanced takes on the situation at hand were silenced or side-lined. Nupur J. Sharma, editor of OpIndia, tweeted, ““Nobody cares. keep your candles. Keep your apples. Keep your shawls. Keep your Kashmiriyat. Stop the bloody drama,” in response to a candle march held by Kashmiris in condemnation of the attack.

Columnist and political researcher Asim Ali wrote for The Telegraph, “The function of the communally-coded messaging broadcast on news channels is not to ‘reflect’ the anger of the audience, as they claim. It is to create and sustain an angry, communal subject that identifies with the incendiary scripts and is conditioned to demand revenge on a shady ‘Muslim’ enemy as well as its political supporters. It is to reinforce the authority of the political executive even though it has failed to fulfil the substantive demands of the citizenry, now transformed into a passive Hindu audience with its exogenously- seeded communal demands.

Historical Context

Ali writes, “The foundational moment of the present regime can, arguably, be located in the 2002 Gujarat riots where this political experiment of constructing and exorcising a Muslim enemy had been carried out to fruition. That experiment culminated in the re-election of the Modi-led state government over thousands of dead bodies. We have already seen several reports of attacks on Kashmiri students by right-wing vigilantes from different states in the last few days.” Ali connecting Pahalgam to the Gujarat riots is very well-founded, because this chamber of violence is not neo-natal in its construction. It has been tried, tested and perfected over decades of institutionalizing codes of conduct of perpetuating harm towards the Islamic “other”.

To contextualize this further, one could look at the media coverage of the 2002 riots and the differences in its approach. In the Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report, Crimes Against Humanity released in November 2002, the Tribunal noted, “On February 28, the two largest circulation, multiple-edition Gujarati newspapers, Sandesh and  Gujarat Samachar, which are fairly dependent on the state government’s largesse, played up the unsubstantiated official version of there being a ‘foreign hand’ behind the Godhra tragedy. It was only 3-4 weeks later that reports rubbishing this theory began to appear in newspapers. But by that time, the damage had already been done. Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar have been playing a blatantly communal role since the BJP returned to power in Gujarat in 1998. The BJP government’s patronage of these dailies needs to be looked into carefully, so that they do not continue to act as mere government agents. In the recent carnage, too, the role of Sandesh was particularly mischievous, while some smaller circulation newspapers like Gujarat Today, Sadhbhav and Gujarat Mitra acted responsibly.”

A study done by Saifuddin Ahmed titled The Role of the Media during Communal Riots in India points out that national television media coverage of the riots had been “bold and independent” with journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt at Star News repeatedly condemning the victimisation of the Muslims in Gujarat during the riots. Print publications like The Times of India and The Indian Express carried headlines that highlighted the atrocities faced by the Muslim communities. This of course resulted in them receiving a lot of flak from the BJP administration in Gujarat and the centre. According to Ahmed, “The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, addressed the nation a day after the attacks, regretting the “disgraceful” violence. He later on added that the news media were presenting an “exaggerated” account of the situation in Gujarat. The BJP and the state government under Narendra Modi singled out STAR News and banned cable operators from showing the channel in the state. The viewers in Ahmedabad, one of the worst affected regions in the riots, were left with blank television screens, unaware of the reality happening on the streets. Cable operators received calls from local officials in Ahmedabad and other cities to completely blackout STAR News, Zee News, CNN and Aaj Tak. Dossiers and “hitlists” on journalists were reportedly prepared while the channels which dared to reveal the truth and were critical of the Chief Minister and his plan of actions were not invited to the press conferences and hence were denied the basic right to information by the state itself.”

One sees this model amplified in its worst possible form with – whose control is currently concentrated in the hands of corporate conglomerates with firm affiliations to the Indian state apparatus. This facilitation of the development of a monolithic opinion that centralizes hate is strengthened by the hostile crackdown on independent media outlets covering communal hatred and opposing the regime’s machinery. Over the course of the last month, the websites of multiple independent news media platforms such as that of The Wire, Maktoob Media, have been blocked by the government. One could also think of the temporarily blocking of the X account of Anuradha Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times. In the last few years, the Indian government has zeroed down on completely dismantling press freedom by revoking non-profit status from independent news media outlets, routinely charging journalists with sedition and terrorism – and even monitoring them with the Israeli spyware, Pegasus. One must also remember, that several of the most powerful accused of the Gujarat riots have been released, and now roam free, having escaped through loopholes and intentional pardoning.

This however does not absolve less powerful or non-media actors of their role in furthering the bile of “revenge”. Al Jazeera found almost 20 songs that built on Hindutva-aligning sentiments that were meant to be incendiary. While H-Pop (Hindutva Pop) with a high degree of hate content has been a visible phenomenon over the past decade, Caravan and CJP have analysed these, Pahalgam gave this new hate music market a new focus and twist. All of these songs infiltrated into the timelines of Indian social media users, with outright calls for Hindus to identify the “traitors within the country”. At the same time, politicians and members of the Hindu right continued with the single focus agenda which is to lace every issue, every speech with its own peculiar dose of targeted hate.

According to our data, there were over 100 instances of hate speeches in the country. Here is an example, on May 5, in Bankura, West Bengal BJP MP Saumitra Khan, while submitting a memorandum demanding the deportation of alleged Pakistani nationals residing in the state, “urged Hindus to sell their land and houses only to fellow Hindus. He alleged that once their children move away and they pass away, Rohingyas would eventually occupy their homes”. In another instance, on May 4, BJP MLA Ravinder Singh Negi, “speaking at a religious event in a temple, claimed that Muslims train their children to become extremists in madrasas instead of providing them with proper education. He questioned why Hindus could not raise their children as extremists in temples. He also invoked the Pahalgam attack and dog-whistled for a boycott of those he described as ‘traitors’ within the country.”

One often sees politicians attributing the rise in communalism to the populace, rather than the multiple perpetrators of the same. Here, we could think of the concept of Astroturfing — which “is the deceptive practice of hiding the sponsors of an orchestrated message or organization (e.g., political, economic, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from, and is supported by, unsolicited grassroots participants.” This could simply be translated to this: it is a process where a top-down method of dissemination is falsely recognised or propagated as a bottom-up one. If we were to integrate this conceptual framework with what Nalin Mehta writes in Modi and the Camera: The Politics of Television in the 2002 Gujarat Riots — “For our purpose, John B. Thompson’s notion of ‘mediated communication’, where he taps into the hermeneutic tradition to postulate that individuals are not passive recipients of symbolic messages from the communication media, is also pertinent. Messages from the mass media are received in settings spatially and temporally remote from the original context of production and the recipient’s own assumptions and expectations regulate how they are interpreted and appropriated,” – we would understand why things are the way they happen to be.

Responses

The institutional / state response to most of these hate crimes have not been very appropriate, with an observable systemic apathy in the nature of action taken by the administration / police forces. Most Chief Ministers of the states in question have not addressed the rising  tensions within their respective states, instead focusing on urging for befitting replies and prices that need to be paid. The police have been no better, in most cases being entirely absent from the scenes of violence, in others being complicit in institutional violence.

Graph representing the response of police in respective cases of hate crimes

Out of 180 data entries that were made situations where it was
Unclear if there was a case filed: 135 cases
Institutional Violence: 7 cases
Appropriate / Immediate police action: 15 cases
Definitively no case filed: 6
Police took action that harmed the Muslim victim: 17 cases

Out of the 39 cases that had clear police involvement, 53% or 24 of those cases were ones where the police were complicit outright. The other thing to be mentioned here is in all the cases where we are dealing with unclear police involvement, we are unsure whether no case has been filed or whether attempts were made and then rejected.

The worst affected, however, have been Kashmiris and Kashmiri Muslims, in particular. Following the Pahalgam attack, surveillance has intensified in Kashmir. According to Kashmir Times, “In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, security forces have launched extensive operations across Kashmir, demolishing about a dozen houses using explosives and conducting widespread searches and detentions. At least 1500 people are said to have been detained. The demolitions have occurred in multiple districts including Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag, Kupwara, and Bandipora”.  There have been multiple incidents of Kashmiri students being harassed in other states, creating an almost paranoid sense of hypervigilance among these individuals. Kashmiri businessmen have also found themselves in trouble, where selling their wares has become near-impossible within the current climate.

Mirza Waheed, writer born in Srinagar, Kashmir, wrote for The Guardian, “Kashmiris have never wanted to be a bone of contention between the two states; they have paid a staggeringly steep price for this 75-year relationship of attrition. Internally, Kashmir has never really been normal, despite the narrative push and despite the appearance of normality, scripted elsewhere and executed on the ground through a security-administrative complex. Underneath the quiet, there is growing resentment at what Kashmiris see as their incremental and cumulative dispossession and disempowerment, in the form of new domicile and land laws, and in the absence of any real representational politics. Human rights activists, journalists and politicians remain in jail under harsh anti-terror laws. Nobody is allowed to speak; surveillance is probably at its highest since the start of the armed insurgency in the late 1980s; a previously independent and robust press has almost entirely been forced into a supine, compliant role. Most accounts from Kashmir speak of suppressed anger at the growing powerlessness and the humiliating deprivation of agency. Many Kashmiris talk about dham, a quiet, bruising suffocation, with no space to breathe. That all this is fertile ground for militancy is hardly a surprise, whether local or Pakistan-sponsored.”

All seems to remain unwell, in the land of what has turned out to be the homeland of misdiagnosed glory and gore.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this graphic visualisation report has been worked on by Saptaparma Samajdar)

Sources

1. https://m.thewire.in/article/media/communalisation-pahalgam-reinforcing-anti-muslim-sentiment
2. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/29/traitors-hate-filled-songs-target-indian-muslims-after-kashmir-attack
3. https://muslimmirror.com/right-wing-media-channels-peddle-anti-muslim-narratives-after-pahalgam-attack/
4. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/uttarakhand/uttarakhand-cm-condemns-terror-attack-in-jks-pahalgam-3505295
5. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/kashmir-domicile-law-raises-fears-of-losing-land-culture-idUSKCN24T007/
6. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/country-specialists/five-years-silence-and-struggle-kashmir
7. https://article-14.com/post/-what-did-i-do-after-pahalgam-attack-kashmiri-students-in-at-least-4-northern-states-face-intimidation-threats-isolation–680b16d1a8d53
8. https://www.thehindu.com/education/pahalgam-attack-casts-a-shadow-over-jammu-and-kashmir-students-outside-state/article69531760.ece
9. https://www.dw.com/en/india-pakistan-conflict-risks-deepening-religious-tensions/a-72529635
10. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/00856400601031989
11. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/03/india-media-freedom-under-threat#:~:text=Amid%20growing%20restrictions%20on%20media,spyware%20Pegasus%20to%20target%20journalists.
12. https://cjp.org.in/role-of-the-media-how-hate-was-spread-in-2002-in-gujarat/

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While acts of terror have been defined, defining terrorism is not easy and no such definition could be articulated even by the UN bodies working on this. As far as India is concerned it has been witnessing regular killings in Kashmir by the insane acts of brain washed Muslim youth. India saw the 26/11 2008 attack in Mumbai in which nearly 200 people lost their lives. Very interestingly Hemant Karkare, the then Anti-Terrorist Squad chief of Maharashtra was killed during this attack.

Parallel to this we also witnessed the acts of terror beginning in Nanded (2006) and later four major places, Malegaon, Ajmer, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad) and Samjhuata Express. For Malegaon related blast, NIA is demanding death penalty for Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, BJP MP, whose motor cycle was the instrument used in Malegaon. Along with her Lt Col Purohit is also being tried and other names which came into picture were those of Swami Aseemanand, Major (retd) Upadhyay and many those who had affiliation to Hindutva politics.

As India faces these acts of terror, it is imperative that we give a serious thought to the root of global terror and its impact on India. While the security measures undertaken at the moment are being questioned as earlier Pulwama and now Pahalgam terror attacks have shown chinks in our armour, there are some deeper issues which India needs to collaborate with global agencies in eradicating some of these.

At one level the terrorist groups which are affecting India, have bases in Pakistan. The plight of Pakistan is pathetic as it is not only an agency of acts of terror; it is also the victim of this dastardly phenomenon. The present terror acts are taking place in Kashmir. The major actors involved in this tragedy in Kashmir are offshoots of terror groups, which came up in the aftermath of the American project of countering the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

As the US was in no position to take on the Russian army’s presence in Afghanistan, it promoted Madrassas in Pakistan which gave training to Muslim youth; Taliban and its later clones was the result. Mahmood Mamdani in his well-researched book, ‘Good Muslim Bad Muslim’, tells us how the syllabus of these Madras’s was prepared in Washington. Communists were presented as Kafirs. Killing Kafirs was propagated as the goal and in the achievement of this goal, even if one loses life, Jannat was assured. America spent eight thousand million dollars in these madrassas and provided them with 7000 tons of armaments, which included the latest stinger missiles.

The same phenomenon of terror, promotion of which was the imperialist ambitions of America in controlling the oil wealth of West Asia, did assume dangerous proportions creating havoc in the region. Just to remind it was this era when Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis was ruling the roost. To the global good fortune, Kofi Annan the UN Secretary General appointed a high level committee to examine ‘Clash of Civilization’ in particular.

This committee came out with a report “Alliance of Civilizations” which concluded that the World has progressed due to the alliance of Civilizations. This report did not get projections from various quarters. The Islamophobia planted by the acts of terror and the negative role of American media was so intense that at places copies of the Koran were burnt.

The terror phenomenon turned into Frankenstein’s monster. While it played its negative role at multiple levels, it turned into destruction recklessly and Pakistan has also been a victim of this phenomenon. One recalls the Ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was killed in one such attack by the terror groups. GTI (Global Terror Index) is a composite measure made up of four indicators: incidents, fatalities, injuries and hostages. To measure the impact of terrorism, a five-year weighted average is applied. In this Pakistan is 2^nd and India 14^th . Meaning the acts of terror have tormented Pakistan much more than India.

No wonder that the victims of terrorism are more in Pakistan, as it is the madrassas in Pakistan where the training was given. While India has to ensure that no acts of terror take place in India, there is also a need to understand that this cancer of terror sown by imperialist ambitions for control over oil can be eradicated by cooperation at global level.

“…Pakistan—a country repeatedly labelled as the “global exporter of terror”—has been appointed to chair the United Nations Security Council’s Taliban Sanctions Committee in 2025. Simultaneously, it will serve as vice-chair of the Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee.” Surely this tells a complex tale.

There are many factors controlling the policies of Pakistan, the emerging angle of China is yet another of these. While Pakistan needs to be held accountable, there is also a need to ensure that it is brought to the discussion table to get rid of this scourge. To prevent terror attacks in India all steps in promoting democracy in Kashmir are the need of the hour.

We are at present facing multiple dilemmas. The progress of Kashmir is static despite its vast potential. Pakistan needs to engage at multiple levels to ensure the eradication of the cancerous growth of terrorist violence. At a subtle level there is a propaganda associating Islam, Muslims with the phenomenon of terror. This understanding lacks a deeper understanding of the peculiar circumstances in which the American designs to control over West Asian oil resources has operated and led to the present impasse. Symptomatic countering of this dastardly phenomenon needs to be added on with the deeper analysis of the global scenario where dominant American policies have played a ruinous role in promoting this phenomenon and is now washing its hands off it.

The writer is a human rights activist, who taught at IIT Bombay. The views are personal.

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This means that South Asia has one of the highest population densities in the world, estimated as the number of people living in one square km.

While the entire world has a population density of about 60, South Asia has a population density of 303, over five times the world average.

In several cities of South Asia the population density can be many times more. In the most densely populated district of Karachi Central, the population density is 55,396. In Kolkata this is 24,252.

One of the implications of very high population density is that in any modern-day war which uses very destructive weapons, loss of life can potentially be much higher compared to most other countries. To mention two war and civil war-ravaged countries which have suffered high war-related mortality in recent times, Ukraine has population density of 67 while Sudan has population density of 29. This gives an indication of potentially how high war mortality can be in conditions of very high population density that prevail in South Asia.

These and several other facts regarding very high risks must be kept in consideration at a time when a lot of concern is being expressed regarding the increasing possibilities of escalation of war-risks involving India and Pakistan.

However the single most important factor is not regarding the risk escalation of recent days. The most important fact is that India and Pakistan have stepped back from such high risk situations in the past to avoid war. If they could do so in the past, they should be able to do so now too, thereby saving South Asia from massive distress and disaster.

Both sides are heavily armed and are in a position to procure more weapons from bigger powers. Both sides are nuclear weapon powers and there are estimates of the two countries having a total of about 340 nuclear weapons, more or less in equal numbers.

War involving any such two countries A and B may take this path—in the first few days there is high loss of life from conventional weapons on both sides but with the passage of time the bigger conventional power A gains a clear edge, and then faced with a serious crisis, the weaker power B resorts to using nuclear weapons and in reply immediately the stronger power A also uses nuclear weapons.

Of course this is not a very likely path as leaders of both countries being well aware of the unacceptably high dangers of nuclear weapons are likely to stop short of using these but at the same time the possibility of use of nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out entirely, and this is a very big risk indeed, an unacceptably high risk.

The risks have also increased at present because of other big wars occupying the attention of great powers. However even otherwise the will-power for playing non-partisan mediator role has reduced and instead there is much more arbitrariness in evidence at the international level. The role of the United Nations has been steadily becoming less significant.

At the same time the existence of bilateral security arrangements or risk-minimizing arrangements between India and Pakistan are extremely weak and inadequate just now.

Hence the best policy for both countries is to quickly move back from any risks of war. Leaders of both countries simply have to display greater maturity and commitment to peace and if they do so, history will still remember them for saving South Asia from disaster.

People of both countries have deep respect for several sacred sites and places of great cultural heritage located in the other country. People of both countries have much to benefit from having better relations with each other. Let us not forget all this in the heat of the present day intense hostilities. If good sense of quickly stopping further escalation prevails today, in the coming years this wisdom and good sense will be greatly appreciated by the people as well as the upcoming generation.

The world is already deeply troubled by war and conflict. Let us not add to this by igniting a new one between two nuclear weapon countries. No other kind of war can be more risky than a war between two nuclear weapon countries.

Both countries have important development challenges ahead of them. The path of development and meeting the needs and aspirations of all people will be seriously harmed if war breaks out.

If this war breaks out then everyone involved will suffer to some extent and in some way or the other, and in the worst case scenario there will be the kind of massive destruction that only nuclear weapons can cause. Neighbouring countries not involved in the war will also be very adversely affected.

So the leaders of both the countries should do their best to avoid the possibility of such a war.

(The author is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine—A Path to Peace)           

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According to reports from the Superintendent of Police, the attack took place around 9:00 am on April 22, when most villagers were away in their fields for cultivation work. Taking advantage of their absence, unknown assailants set multiple homes ablaze, triggering panic and displacement in the already fragile region. In response, Kamjong District Magistrate Rangnamei Rang Peter invoked Section 163(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, to issue emergency prohibitory orders.

The curfew prohibits the movement of all persons outside their homes and bars any activity that could disturb peace and public order in the affected areas. Only personnel involved in essential services and law enforcement have been exempted. Anyone wishing to organise processions for weddings, funerals, or religious or cultural events within the restricted zones must obtain prior written permission from the District Magistrate or the Superintendent of Police. To ensure on-ground implementation and oversight, Hungyo Yurreikan, Sub-Divisional Collector of Sahamphung, has been appointed Executive Magistrate for the affected village jurisdictions, as per a report of India Today NE.

The incident has been widely condemned by tribal civil society groups. In a joint statement, five Kuki-Zo-Hmar organisations, including the Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), denounced the attack as a targeted assault on innocent Kuki civilians. “These heinous acts of arson have devastated lives, destroyed homes, and terrorised a community already grappling with ethnic tension and insecurity,” the statement read, as per The Tribune.

The organisations described the attack as part of a disturbing pattern of systemic violence, displacement, and discrimination against the Kuki-Zo people. They criticised the Government of India for its continued failure to uphold constitutional duties and protect vulnerable communities in the state. “It is deeply alarming that such acts of terror persist under the government’s watch, at a time when the region demands urgent, just, and sensitive intervention,” they said, the report of YesPunjab said.

In addition to condemning the violence, the tribal bodies called for the immediate rehabilitation of affected families and the deployment of neutral and adequate security forces in Gampal and Haiyang to ensure safety and deter further attacks. As of now, no group has claimed responsibility, and an investigation into the incident is ongoing. With tensions running high and the threat of escalation looming, residents have been urged to remain indoors and extend full cooperation to security personnel patrolling the area.

Related:

Manipur: In a First Under Prez Rule, ‘Tactical Retreat’ by Meiteis

Manipur tensions escalate over free movement policy: Kuki-Zo resistance and government crackdown

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh resigns amid political turmoil and ethnic unrest

Supreme Court seeks forensic report on audio recordings alleging Manipur CM’s role in ethnic violence

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On the afternoon of April 22, the area was bustling with families, couples, and individual tourists. Many were enjoying tea and snacks after a trek or pony ride to the high-altitude meadow, unaware of the horror about to unfold.

At approximately 2:45 pm, peace was torn apart when a group of four heavily armed militants, disguised in camouflage uniforms, emerged from the forest surrounding Baisaran. Without warning, they opened fire on the unsuspecting tourists, unleashing a hail of bullets that reverberated across the valley.

Witnesses described a scene of sheer panic and terror. Tourists, many of them with children, fled in every direction. One survivor from Nagpur, Simran Chandani, spoke to The Times of India and recalled the chaos: “We had just finished our tea and were preparing to leave. Suddenly, we heard what we thought was a balloon bursting, and then came the screams, the stampede. I ran, taking the name of God.”

Initial reports confirmed 28 civilians killed—most of them tourists—and many more injured, making it one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in India since the 2008 Mumbai carnage. Questions have been raised regarding the absence of any police, paramilitary, or army in or around the place of attack, as a large number of tourists were present at the Baisaran meadow. As per media accounts, ANI, PTI, Greater Kashmir, about six armed gunmen first encircled then selectively shot dead the men from among several visitors gathered there.

Claim of responsibility and motive

A group of four, including two locals, identifying itself as Resistance Front (TRF), believed to be a front for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the heinous assault. The group cited opposition to the recent settlement of more than 85,000 outsiders in the region as their justification—a deeply troubling development, hinting at targeted violence based on identity and residency. Sketches of the suspected attackers—identified as Asif Fauji, Suleman Shah, and Abu Talha (aliases Moosa, Yunus, and Asif)—were released shortly after the attack. 

Targeted horror and eyewitness testimony

A report of Deccan Herald provided the account of survivors, who says that the militants deliberately targeted men, asking them to identify themselves and even allegedly forcing some to recite Islamic verses. There were claims that some were made to remove clothing before being executed at close range. Although these details are still being verified, the cruelty and premeditation behind the attack are undeniable.

The firings lasted an excruciating 20 to 25 minutes at least, as per multiple media reports. Over 70 shell casings—belonging to American M4 carbine rifles and AK-47s—were found at the scene. The attackers later vanished into the forested terrain, triggering a massive search operation by Indian security forces.

One local, Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a pony ride operator, emerged as a tragic hero. He attempted to disarm one of the terrorists in a desperate bid to protect a tourist under his care. Shah was shot dead during the attempt—becoming the only Kashmiri local killed in the attack. His grieving family, now without its only breadwinner, has appealed for justice.

The Victims: Lives interrupted, dreams extinguished

The true weight of the Pahalgam attack is not in the number of bullets fired or shell casings recovered, but in the lives so brutally cut short. Each victim was more than a statistic—they were sons, daughters, parents, and partners.

Among those killed was a young Indian Navy officer on his honeymoon, his uniform traded for a few days of peace in the hills. A retired banker from Andhra Pradesh was also gunned down without warning. A realtor from Karnataka, an accountant from Odisha, and a cement dealer from Uttar Pradesh—each on a simple holiday with loved ones—met the same cruel fate.

There was a man from Kerala who had recently returned from the Gulf, and a tourist from Nepal, the only foreign national killed, whose presence was a reminder of Kashmir’s reputation as a destination that once transcended borders. Now, their names are etched into a grim list of those who never made it home. The tragedy of this attack lies not only in the brutality of the act but in the ordinary, joyful moments it stole. This was not just an attack on individuals—it was an attack on the fundamental human desire to seek beauty, joy, and connection. And that is why it cuts so deep.

A Local Hero: The story of Syed Adil Hussain Shah

As bullets rained down on unsuspecting tourists in Pahalgam, amidst screams and chaos, one man stood his ground—not to flee, but to protect. A Gujjar local Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a humble pony ride operator from Pahalgam, displayed remarkable bravery in the face of terror. NDTV reported his heroic acts in a special report. In a moment that epitomised selflessness, Shah tried to snatch a rifle from one of the gunmen in a desperate attempt to save the tourists he had ferried to the Baisaran meadow. His valiant act cost him his life.

Adil Shah was the only local killed in the brutal attack that claimed the lives of 26 tourists. According to eyewitness accounts, the terrorists were selecting victims based on their religion, reportedly asking people to recite a Koranic verse before pulling the trigger. In the midst of this horror, Shah’s actions offered a fleeting glimmer of humanity. He refused to cower—his last moments defined by courage rather than fear.

As reported by NDTV, Adil leaves behind an elderly mother and father, a wife, and young children, all of whom depended on him. The grief in the Shah household is immeasurable. His inconsolable mother wept not only for the irreplaceable loss of her son but also for the uncertain future that now looms over the family. His father, Syed Haider Shah, speaking to ANI, said: “My son went to Pahalgam yesterday to work, and around 3 pm, we heard about the attack. We called him, but his phone was switched off. Later, at 4.40 pm, his phone turned on, but no one answered. We rushed to the police station, and that’s when we learned that he had been shot in the attack. Whoever is responsible must face the consequences.”

#WATCH | J&K | Family member of Anantnag resident Syed Hussain Shah, who lost his life in the #PahalgamTerroristAttack, says, “He (Syed Hussain Shah) had gone to Pahalgam to work… We got information about the attack at 3 pm. When we called (Syed Hussain Shah), the phone was not… pic.twitter.com/8IlX5NKB8j

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

Adil’s story is more than a tragedy—it is a testament to the strength of character that often goes unsung in times of crisis. In a region haunted by decades of conflict, his death is a piercing reminder that violence knows no bounds, and its victims are often the very people who strive to preserve life. The family has appealed for justice, and the Valley mourns a son who died not in silence, but in struggle—trying to protect those who had come seeking peace in the meadows of Kashmir.

#WATCH | J&K | Mother of the Anantnag resident Syed Hussain Shah, who lost his life in the #PahalgamTerroristAttack, gets emotional, says, “He was the only bread earner of the family…” pic.twitter.com/W7BgzeVOEC

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

National and international response

The attack drew widespread condemnation and grief from both national and international quarters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia, immediately cut short his trip and returned to India. In a statement, he described the assault as a “heinous act,” vowed that the perpetrators “will not be spared,” and promised all assistance to the injured and the families of the deceased.

I strongly condemn the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured recover at the earliest. All possible assistance is being provided to those affected.

Those behind this heinous act will be brought…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 22, 2025

Home Minister Amit Shah flew to Srinagar to oversee the investigation, while the government decided to transfer the probe from the Jammu and Kashmir Police to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), indicating the gravity of the situation.

With a heavy heart, paid last respects to the deceased of the Pahalgam terror attack. Bharat will not bend to terror. The culprits of this dastardly terror attack will not be spared. pic.twitter.com/bFxb2nDT4H

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) April 23, 2025

US President Donald Trump expressed deep condolences and assured India of America’s full support. The world watched in horror as images and videos of the aftermath—people screaming, bleeding, and desperately pleading for help—circulated across social media.

Across India, political leaders and citizens reacted with grief and anger. Leader of the Opposition (LOP), Rahul Gandhi expressed sorrow and condemnation at the attack but also stated on his account on X that he had spoken to Home Minister, Amit Shah.

“Spoke with HM Amit Shah, J&K CM Omar Abdullah, and J&K PCC President Tariq Karra about the horrific Pahalgam terror attack. Received an update on the situation. The families of the victims deserve justice and our fullest support,” Gandhi said.

Spoke with HM Amit Shah, J&K CM Omar Abdullah, and J&K PCC President Tariq Karra about the horrific Pahalgam terror attack. Received an update on the situation.

The families of victims deserve justice and our fullest support.

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 23, 2025

Rahul Gandhi also spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the chairman of the National Conference, which leads the ruling alliance in the Union Territory, with the Congress as a coalition partner. After the 2001 attack on the Parliament, Sonia Gandhi, who was then the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition, was among the first leaders to dial the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to enquire about his well-being.

Chief Minister, Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah expressed heartbreak over the mass exodus of tourists and urged cooperation with controlled evacuation efforts, given the precarity of local roads.

It’s heartbreaking to see the exodus of our guests from the valley after yesterday’s tragic terror attack in Pahalgam but at the same time we totally understand why people would want to leave. While DGCA & the Ministry of Civil Aviation are working to organise extra flights,… pic.twitter.com/5O3i5U1rBh

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 23, 2025

Mehbooba Mufti, former Chief Minister and PDP leader, led a protest march with party workers in Srinagar. They held placards reading, “This is an attack on all of us” and “Stop innocent killings.” Iltija Mufti, a young local leader, expressed disbelief, saying Baisaran was heavily patrolled and the ease with which such an attack happened was deeply alarming.

This is an attack on all of us. #Pahalgam pic.twitter.com/3NAJKrG0Wp

— J&K PDP (@jkpdp) April 23, 2025

CPI (M) leader and Kulgam MLA MY Tarigami speaking to PTI has said, “It is very unfortunate and painful for all of us. Especially for those whose family members, loved ones have been injured in the attack. When a tourist comes to Jammu and Kashmir, it opens employment opportunities for the locals here… It is a good thing for us when tourists come here again and again, but if they are attacked, then it is very shameful and painful… The government should take strict action against this.”

Condemning the dastardly attack on tourists in Pahalgam. The inhuman act of violence deserves to be denounced in the strongest terms. Such cowardly attacks on innocent civilians have no place in any civilised society.

— M Y Tarigami (@tarigami) April 22, 2025

Senior advocate and independent Rajya Sabha member, Kapil Sibal has, in a statement quoted by PTI stated, “Quoting Pakistan Chief Gen Asim Munir’s ‘jugular vein comment’, Sibal called the attack as a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack. He says, “It will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it, we not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their historic struggle. So obviously this is (Pakistan) state sponsored because this was said just a week ago…. I would urge the Home Minister to proscribe the outfit as a terrorist organisation under UAPA and we should file a prosecution in the International Criminal Court, urge international community to boycott Pakistan.”

Pahalgam
Baisaran Valley
26 dead so far..

This terrorist attack is an attack against humanity clearly sponsored by Pakistan.

General Munir said “Kashmir is our jugular vein..” one week ago

HM must proscribe Pakistan a terrorist state ; a terrorist organisation under UAPA

— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) April 23, 2025

VIDEO | Quoting Pakistan Army chief Gen Asim Munir’s ‘jugular vein’ comment, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) calls Pahalgam terrorist attack as Pakistan sponsored terrorist attack.

He says, “‘It will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it, we will not leave our… pic.twitter.com/CA07QxG0qG

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) April 23, 2025

Security and evacuation efforts

In the immediate aftermath, the region saw a significant security build-up. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) urged airlines to increase flights from Srinagar and waive rescheduling fees to help tourists evacuate. 

Aftermath of Pahalgam terror attack, DGCA issues advisory to airlines over surge in pricing and waiving cancellation charges: DGCA pic.twitter.com/GHzerH1NSw

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

Helicopters were deployed to airlift the severely injured, while locals—many of whom make a living from tourism—rushed to carry the wounded down the hill on ponies, a testament to the humanity still present amid horror.

Protests: A valley silenced by grief, united in defiance

This attack has dealt a severe blow to the region’s fragile calm, coming at a time when Kashmir was witnessing a revival in tourism. With the 38-day Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage set to begin in July, concerns over security are likely to grow.

While investigations continue, the horror at Pahalgam has brought back chilling memories of past tragedies in the Valley. It has reminded the country that terrorism still lurks, capable of destroying lives and peace in an instant.

On the morning following the horrific terror attack in Pahalgam that left 28 people dead—mostly tourists and local guides—Kashmir awoke to a sight it hadn’t seen in decades. Leading newspapers across the Valley printed their front pages in black, a visual lament echoing the sorrow, fury, and helplessness that had gripped the region. With headlines in stark white and crimson, the media offered a rare and haunting public protest against the brutality that once again ruptured the fragile peace of Jammu and Kashmir.

This is how Kashmir is feeling today. Saluts to the local newspapers: apologies to all Kashmiris for some of the Indian commercial electronic TV channels! https://t.co/dVycluuuwJ

— Teesta Setalvad (@TeestaSetalvad) April 23, 2025

Prominent English and Urdu dailies—Greater Kashmir, Rising Kashmir, Kashmir Uzma, Aftab, and Taameel Irshad—eschewed the usual format, opting instead for a symbolic blackout. Greater Kashmir led with the chilling headline: “Gruesome: Kashmir Gutted, Kashmiris Grieving”, its subheading in blood red: “26 killed in deadly terror attack in Pahalgam.” The editorial beneath, titled “The massacre in the meadow – Protect Kashmir’s soul,” did not mince words. It described the assault not merely as a massacre but as an existential threat— “a deliberate blow to Kashmir’s identity and values — its hospitality, its economy, and its fragile peace.”

https://t.co/IJhRewSpKd #PahalgamTerroristAttack #pahalgamattack #PahalgamTerrorAttack

— Teesta Setalvad (@TeestaSetalvad) April 23, 2025

The editorial called for an urgent reimagining of security and intelligence coordination in the Valley. “The ability of terrorists to infiltrate a high-traffic, pedestrian-only tourist site undetected,” it warned, “points to severe gaps in our preventive mechanisms.” It urged a shift from reactive to proactive governance—demanding not just increased surveillance, but greater community engagement and a concerted effort to uproot terror infrastructure.

In a dramatic shift not witnessed since the early 1990s, the entire Kashmir Valley observed a total shutdown in response to the killings—marking the first bandh called to protest terrorism in over 35 years. The call for the shutdown was widely endorsed across the political spectrum and sections of civil society, including religious organisations, business federations, students’ unions, and trade bodies.

As per Hindustan Times, shops, fuel stations, and businesses remained closed in Srinagar and other districts. Public transport was scarce. Only essential services operated, and private vehicles plied the roads cautiously. Private schools suspended classes, while Kashmir University postponed all examinations. The silence that enveloped the Valley was not one of fear but of collective mourning—an unspoken but palpable declaration of unity against the forces that sought to terrorise the region.

Throughout the day, spontaneous and organised protests emerged in all corners of Kashmir. In Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, Mehbooba Mufti joined grieving citizens in a rare display of civilian solidarity. Holding placards that read “Stop innocent killings” and “Killing innocents is an act of terror,” protesters demanded accountability and protection. Addressing the crowd, Mufti said, “This massacre is not just an attack on tourists, but an attack on the very soul of Kashmir. We have always stood against violence, and we will continue to raise our voice until the bloodshed ends.”

Killing innocents is an act of terror. Jammu & Kashmir stands against it. This attack is an attack on all of us. pic.twitter.com/Kc7BiesI4C

— Iltija Mufti (@IltijaMufti_) April 23, 2025

No to Killings. No to Terror. We stand in shame and sorrow. #PahalgamTerroristAttack pic.twitter.com/pP6lY0oyl8

— Yasir Reshi (@YasirrReshi) April 23, 2025

South Kashmir towns like Anantnag, Kulgam, and Shopian saw markets voluntarily shut down. In Ganderbal and Kangan, traders staged processions through town squares, closing their establishments in mourning. Civil society participation was overwhelming. The Mutahida Majlis Ulema (MMU)—a collective of Islamic scholars led by Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq—issued a rare joint appeal for peace and justice. Quoting the Quran during Friday prayers, the Mirwaiz said: “Whoever kills an innocent soul… it is as if he had slain mankind entirely.” He urged the people to observe the shutdown not in vengeance but as a dignified protest against a “heinous crime against humanity.”

#WATCH | J&K | Locals hold a protest against #PahalgamTerrorAttack in Pulwama. pic.twitter.com/Gmgz1y8eE6

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

#WATCH | In light of the tragic killing of innocent civilians by terrorists in Pahalgam, government employees across Jammu and Kashmir observe a two-minute silence as a mark of respect and solidarity

(Visuals from Jammu) pic.twitter.com/XMoCYHHfkW

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

Political parties that have often found themselves at ideological odds—National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Conference, Apni Party—all joined in a chorus of condemnation, signalling a rare moment of political consensus in the Valley. Leaders across affiliations called for a unified approach to security, a reaffirmation of Kashmir’s commitment to peace, and a crackdown on the networks enabling such attacks.

On social media, heartbreak and solidarity flowed freely. A photo of a woman cradling her husband’s bloodied body outside a hospital in Anantnag became emblematic of the grief sweeping through the Valley. Tributes poured in not just for the tourists who perished, but for local guides, porters, and shopkeepers who died helping others flee.

#WATCH | Delhi | On Pahalgam terrorist attack, Senior advocate Kapil Sibal says, “Those responsible for this should be prosecuted in the international court. I urge the Home Minister to proscribe Pakistan as a terrorist state and move the International Criminal Court. I am sure… pic.twitter.com/eYHdRnUHRy

— ANI (@ANI) April 23, 2025

In Baramulla, hundreds gathered for a candlelight vigil led by students, while in Pulwama, elderly citizens marched silently, holding signs that read “We are Kashmiris, not terrorists.” In Budgam, schoolteachers and parents formed human chains outside education offices, denouncing the return of fear in a region already battered by decades of trauma.

Significantly, for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, the administration did not clamp down on protest rallies. Officials confirmed that while security was heightened across sensitive areas, demonstrations were allowed to proceed. “We recognised that this was not an ordinary political agitation. This is a collective tragedy,” a senior police officer said. “The public anger is real, it is justified—and today, the people of Kashmir have made it clear: they reject terror in all its forms.”

The day-long shutdown, though sombre, was not a surrender to fear. It was a powerful, united act of remembrance and resistance—a statement that Kashmiris will not let violence define them. 

Other reports on the Pahalgam terror attack may be read here and here,

Related:

Muslims in Kashmir & across India strongly condemn Pahalgam terror attack

Indian Muslims, others, condemn the heinous massacre of tourists near Pahalgam, Kashmir

The post A Tranquil Paradise Shattered: The Pahalgam terror attack appeared first on SabrangIndia.