On October 12, a man identified as Jay Prakash Mohanty was arrested in Uttarakhand, India, for social media posts insulting the Prophet Mohammad.
Thirty-year-old Mohanty, a contract worker, was arrested by Naugaun Police after receiving a written complaint about his Facebook posts. Demonstrations were also held outside police headquarters, demanding action.
According to the police, “Evidence was found of controversial posts by Mohanty in Facebook slandering not only Prophet Mohammad but Gods of other religions too.”
On October 4, plainclothes police officers in Gujarat, India, publicly flogged nine Muslim men in front of a cheering crowd. Video of the flogging went viral catching the attention of human rights groups.
This video is said to show several Muslim men being flogged by police after they were accused of throwing stones at a Hindu festival dance event in India's Gujarat state pic.twitter.com/OJB7yOeytk
A case of human sacrifice in Kerala, India, has garnered concern about the need for a law against black magic and harmful rituals performed in the name of "faith."
The gruesome deaths of two mercilessly assaulted and murdered women have brought attention to many who want an appropriate law against the harmful and evil rituals performed in the name of superstitions.
On October 12, Muslims were offering the Isha prayer (night prayer) at a mosque in Gurugram, a suburban city of Delhi, India, when hundreds of Hindus forced their way in.
In late September, a woman in the Dumka district of Jharkhand, India, filed a complaint with the police alleging a weekend ordeal at the hands of villagers who leveled accusations of witchcraft.
According to Vinay Kumar, head of the Saraiyahat Police station, who corroborated the ordeal, the complainant, along with two other women and one man, were victims of inhuman torture.
India, despite having a secular and pluralistic constitution, is still massively majoritarian in its views, according to a recent book by a data journalist. The book also claimed that India’s youth has a weaker commitment to democracy and freedom of speech than what is currently believed.
According to the data, “Age, education and urbanization, and income do not produce the moderating, progressive liberal effects on views that we in our popular imagination in India assume they do. Young people do not hold more progressive values than their parents or even their grandparents.”
On September 18, the Aligarh police in Uttar Pradesh, India, booked fifty-eight-year-old Yati Nasinghanard for calling for the demolition of a Muslim university as well as local madrassas.
This Dasna Devi Temple priest is well known for his controversial statements. He has openly called for hate against Muslims in the past, as well as women and minorities. His social media reaches millions of right-wing followers.
According to the BBC, he calls Muslims “demons” and has threatened to eliminate them.
Litmus' 22, an annual gathering of atheists, took place in Kerala, India, on October 2. Thousands of atheists and freethinkers from across the state met up with each other at the Rajiv Gandhi indoor stadium in Kadavanthra, Ernakulam, on the third edition of the event. The gathering of over 10,000 attendees, many of whom participated in various types of discourse, saw debates and presentations.
A Hindu woman was murdered in India by her Muslim husband for refusing to follow Islamic traditions and demanding a divorce.
The name of the accused is Iqbal Mohammad Sheikh, who is known as a 36-year-old taxi driver in Mumbai. He is charged with murdering Rupali Chandanshive, a 20-year-old Hindu woman, by slitting her throat with a sharp knife and stabbing her hands multiple times for not wearing a burqa per Islamic traditions and demanding a divorce. According to the reports, the incident happened on September 26 in the suburban Tilak Nagar area of west Chembur.
