Overview of human rights abuses and violations against India’s religious minorities from 1 July to 30 September, 2025.
Key Figures (July – September, 2025)
STATE ACTORS
- 3 extrajudicial killings of Muslims by police and security forces. (13 this year)
- Hundreds of instances of arbitrary arrest or detention of Muslims, including 87+ in UP for ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign.
- Thousands of punitive demolition/eviction drives targeting Muslims, in defiance of Supreme Court orders.
- 2000+ Bengali-speaking Muslims unilaterally expelled since May, including 450+ from Assam.
- 8.3 million eligible adults estimated missing from Bihar’s electoral rolls; Muslims reportedly among worst affected.
NON-STATE ACTORS
- 9 Muslims killed in incidents involving mob violence or vigilante attacks by Hindu extremist non-state actors. (25 this year)
- Dozens of Muslims assaulted in other communally-motivated hate crimes by Hindu extremists
In the third quarter of 2025, India’s Hindu nationalist government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deepened its project of political, social, economic, and cultural exclusion targeting the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims. Across BJP-controlled states, law and policy continued to serve as instruments of abuse and segregation rather than protection, with citizenship itself increasingly stratified by religion. During the period under review, India’s Bengali-speaking Muslims bore the brunt of this machinery: hundreds across the country continued to be detained, denationalised, and unilaterally expelled under India’s expanding—and illegal—‘pushback’ policy, while thousands more were forcibly displaced in mass eviction drives across Assam. In Bihar, the wholesale revision of voter rolls left millions—disproportionately Muslims—stripped of their electoral voice, further illustrating how state systems are now being repurposed to police belonging, as well as the deepening shift from sporadic discrimination to an organised regime of exclusion. In Uttar Pradesh, even peaceful affirmation of faith by Muslims was criminalised, with authorities launching a sweeping crackdown on the ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign, arresting over 85 people and conducting ‘half encounter’ shootings against organisers accused of promoting a devotional slogan. As multiple scholars have noted, India now appears to be facing its ‘Jim Crow moment.’
A brief overview of key episodes of anti-minority violence and targeting between 1 July and 30 September, 2025:
- At least three Muslims were killed in incidents involving police and security forces, bringing the total to 13 this year. These included a police firing during an eviction drive in Assam, an alleged staged ‘encounter’ in Jammu, and a custodial death in Bihar amid torture allegations. (Deprivation of Life – State Actors)
At least nine more Muslims—including a 7-year-old child and two teenagers—were killed in incidents of religiously motivated assault and mob violence by Hindu extremist non-state actors across six states, bringing the total to 25 such killings so far this year. These included lynchings in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra; vigilante attacks linked to cow protection in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh; and other fatal assaults driven by anti-Muslim hatred in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.(Deprivation of Life – Non-State Actors)
- Police forces across several states carried out widespread arrests, detentions, and custodial torture of Muslims. The nationwide crackdown on the peaceful ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign led to mass arrests in Uttar Pradesh and other BJP-ruled states, accompanied by reports of torture and staged ‘half encounter’ shootings. Further incidents included the custodial torture of a Muslim minor in Gujarat, assaults on Muslim students and activists in Delhi, and the beating of tribal herders by army personnel in Jammu and Kashmir. (Torture and Ill-Treatment: Non-State Actors) (Arrests and Detentions) (Religious Freedom)
- The nationwide campaign of persecution against Bengali-speaking Muslims that began in the aftermath of the April 2025 terror attack in Kashmir intensified. Across India, hundreds—including Indian citizens—continued to be arbitrarily detained, accused of being ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh and Myanmar. In Assam alone—where state authorities introduced a new SOP to expedite the denationalisation and expulsion of Bengali-speaking Muslims—Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has claimed that around 40 people are being unilaterally expelled into Bangladesh every week, without due process, bringing the total to more than 450 since May. Assam’s Bengali-speaking Muslims also faced the most intensive targeted eviction drives in years, with over 17600 families reportedly forcibly displaced since 2016, including nearly 5000 since June, that involved destruction of their homes and properties and places of worship. Alongside, coordinated vigilante campaigns—led by Hindu nationalist and Assamese ethnonationalist groups, and backed by BJP leaders—targeted Bengali-origin Muslims with door-to-door ‘citizenship verification’ drives, threats, and assaults. (Arrests & Detentions) (Arbitrary Deportation & Refoulement) (Discrimination in Access to Economic, Social & Cultural Rights)
- Across states, India continued to witness escalated levels of ‘top’ and ‘intermediate’ levels of hate speech targeted at Muslims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered yet another fear-mongering speech targeting Muslims as ‘infiltrators’ endangering India’s demographic balance. Other leaders—including central Home Minister Amit Shah, and state Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh) and Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam)—too continued to stoke the flames, providing a permissive environment for middle and local-level BJP leaders—and allied non-state actors—to openly incite discrimination, hostility and violence. India’s mainstream media networks continued to play a central role in normalising and amplifying anti-Muslim narratives. (Advocacy of Religious Hatred)
- Other episodes of religious strife and mass violence against Muslims were reported in four states across the country (Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh), against the backdrop of Hindu religious festivals and other localised triggers. Recurring patterns included the tendency of state authorities in BJP-governed states to subject Muslims to reprisals, including via indiscriminate mass arrests. Alongside, dozens of Muslims were assaulted in other religiously-motivated hate crimes by Hindu extremists. (Torture and Ill-Treatment: Non-State Actors)
- Ahead of provincial elections in Bihar state, electoral authorities concluded their Special Intensive Revision (SIRs) of voter rolls, leading to an estimated deficit of 8.3 million adults. According to early analysis, Muslims are reported to be the worst affected, accounting for around one-third of deletions, despite forming only 17% of the state’s population. Preparations for similar voter roll revisions are already underway across the country. (Disenfranchisement & Denationalisation)
- At the policy level, two Indian states introduced or expanded existing legislation criminalising religious conversions, which have been systematically weaponised against Muslims and Christians across BJP-governed states. Alongside, BJP-controlled state governments continued to carry out arbitrary and punitive demolitions and evictions targeting Muslims and their property, in violation of Supreme Court directives mandating due process. BJP states also continued to openly discriminate against Muslims in access to education and livelihoods, while intensifying efforts to culturally marginalise them. The targeting of Muslims, both by state and non-state actors, also continued to be fuelled by cow protection laws that are now in place in 20 of India’s states, with many now having provisions that empower violent ‘vigilante’ groups to function in a quasi-official manner and assist with enforcement, with impunity. (Discrimination in Access to Economic, Social & Cultural Rights) (Religious Freedom)
- Alongside, Indian authorities have also intensified their targeting of journalists and independent media, civil society organisations, academics, artists, performers, and other political dissenters, while pro-government news outlets broadcast an unprecedented barrage of disinformation, with wide-ranging regional implications. (Shrinking Civic Space & Democratic Backsliding)
- Given the severity of the problem, international experts have continued to raise the alarm about the situation in India. At the 60th Session of the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted India’s recent deportation of Rohingya Muslims via land and sea, in addition to other global trends with increasing relevance for India’s minorities: rising hate speech & Islamophobia, mass disinformation, misuse of ‘free speech’ to silence dissent, and the vital role of civil society and NHRIs in defending rights. Also at the 60th Session, Switzerland urged India to take effective steps to protect minorities—a call that India dismissed as ‘surprising, shallow, and ill-informed,’ accusing Switzerland of wasting the Council’s time with ‘blatantly false’ narratives. In July, an allegation letter by four Special Procedures mandate-holders highlighted targeted killings of India’s Muslims by cow vigilantes, noting that the prevailing impunity for such violations has ‘generated cycles of repression.’
In September, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)—which had, earlier this year, recommended India’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern for the fifth straight year—condemned India’s ongoing targeting of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya refugees as setting ‘a dangerous precedent for religious freedom’.
In line with a now-familiar pattern when confronted with its abysmal—and deteriorating—human rights record, the Indian government’s responses defaulted to deflection, whataboutery, and hostility, rather than constructive good faith engagement.
- The normalisation of anti-minority abuse and discrimination, and a severely shrunk civic space, are direct consequences of institutional decay, with India’s domestic mechanisms failing to ensure effective remedy, protection of rights and freedoms, and accountability for abuses. As civil society and international observers have documented in recent months, India’s domestic institutions—including its police, judiciary, NHRI, election authorities, and the media—have increasingly ceased to function as a safeguard against majoritarian abuse and indeed appear to have become its active enablers. (Lack of Effective Remedy)
During the period under review, India’s police forces were implicated in at least three incidents involving alleged unlawful killings and excessive use of force. In Assam, police opened fire on protesting residents during an eviction drive, killing a 19-year-old Bengali-origin Muslim. In Jammu, a 21-year-old Gujjar Muslim man was shot dead in what witnesses and family members described as a staged ‘encounter’. And in Bihar, a 20-year-old Muslim youth died in police custody under suspicious circumstances, amid allegations of torture and cover-up.
The cases highlighted above raise serious concerns under international human rights law, particularly with respect to the right to life, the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, and the State’s duty to ensure effective investigation and accountability. The continued failure to uphold these obligations, particularly in cases involving Muslims, serves as further evidence of their discriminatory treatment by state authorities, as well as of the apparent impunity enjoyed by alleged perpetrators.
In the first half of 2025, the India Persecution Tracker documented the killings of at least 10 Muslim civilians in incidents involving police and security forces across multiple states, including Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Assam, and Jammu & Kashmir.
During the period under review, at least nine Muslims—including a 7-year-old child and two teenagers—were killed in incidents of religiously motivated assault and mob violence by non-state actors across six states. These included lynchings in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra; vigilante attacks linked to cow protection in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh; and fatal assaults driven by religious hatred in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Several victims were targeted in public settings, often with police present or nearby, while others were abducted, tortured, and killed. In multiple cases, the perpetrators were reportedly affiliated with BJP-linked Hindu extremist organisations and/or enjoyed political patronage.
The cases highlighted above raise serious concerns under international human rights law, particularly with respect to the state’s duty to prevent, investigate, and provide effective remedy for violations by non-state actors. In several instances, police disputed eyewitness accounts, denied religious motives, or failed to intervene even when present at the scene. These continuing failures reflect a broader pattern of impunity in cases of mob violence targeting Muslims, as well as the state’s unwillingness to address the enabling environment of hate speech and vigilantism that fuels such attacks.
In the first half of 2025, the India Persecution Tracker had documented the killings of 16 Muslims in incidents involving mob violence or vigilante attacks by Hindu extremist non-state actors, across five states.
In July 2025, a group of UN Special Procedures mandate-holders—on freedom of religion or belief; cultural rights; minority issues; and summary executions—issued an allegation letter to India highlighting reports of 300+ such killings since 2014, disproportionately of Muslims. The experts expressed concern that impunity for such violations has ‘generated cycles of repression,’ and noted that States may be held responsible for the conduct of non-State actors if they fail to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and respond to such conduct.
In the third quarter of 2025, Indian authorities carried out widespread and arbitrary arrests and detentions of Muslims across multiple states. These included mass arrests linked to the ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign in Uttar Pradesh and other BJP-governed states; the continued detention and expulsion of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya refugees under the nationwide crackdown on ‘illegal immigrants’; and the arrest of clerics, activists, and ordinary citizens under anti-conversion laws. In Jammu and Kashmir, security forces continued large-scale cordon-and-search operations and arrests under counter-terrorism and preventive detention laws.
The cases highlighted above raise serious concerns under international human rights law relating to the prohibition of arbitrary detention and the rights to liberty, equality before the law, and due process. Many of the arrests described above were carried out without credible legal basis, in a discriminatory manner, or in reprisal for the peaceful exercise of protected rights. These patterns are exacerbated by routine violations of procedural safeguards, including prolonged pre-trial detention, denial of legal representation, and the use of intimidation and public humiliation.
During the second quarter of 2025, state officials across multiple regions were implicated in serious cases of custodial torture, assault, and ill-treatment of Muslims. These included fresh reports of ‘half-encounter’ shootings in Uttar Pradesh, including against the backdrop of the ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign; arbitrary detention and torture in Bareilly under the pretext of a ‘conversion racket’ probe; the custodial torture of a Muslim minor in Gujarat; the assault of Muslim students and activists in Delhi; and the assault of tribal herders by an army officer in Jammu and Kashmir.
The recent cases highlighted above are only illustrative. Torture and ill-treatment remain endemic across India, routinely used by authorities as a tool of law enforcement. For Muslims in particular, such violence is often shaped by discriminatory religious motives. While India is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, it has yet to ratify the treaty or enact a standalone domestic law criminalising torture, contributing to persistent accountability gaps.
A recent report by REDRESS highlighted this normalisation of custodial torture in India and the lack of effective safeguards for victims. Complementing these findings, a May 2025 report by SAJC documented recurring patterns of custodial violence specifically targeting Muslims. The report found that Muslim detainees were routinely subjected not only to severe physical abuse, but also to degrading treatment that explicitly targeted their religious identity, including being forced to chant Hindu religious slogans or mocked for religious identity-markers and practices.
In the third quarter of 2025, India continued to witness an unrelenting surge of mob violence, vigilante attacks, and other religiously motivated hate-crimes by non-state actors across multiple states. Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam were subjected to coordinated violence and intimidation by Hindu nationalist and Assamese ethnonationalist groups, while fresh inter-religious clashes were reported in at least four states, often followed by selective police crackdowns against Muslims. Throughout the period under review, Muslims and Christians continued to face violent targeting and humiliation on various pretexts.
The developments highlighted above raise serious concerns under international human rights law, particularly in relation to the rights to security of person, protection from torture and ill-treatment, and religious freedom. They act as further evidence of Indian authorities’ failure to meet their obligation to prevent, investigate, and provide remedy for violations perpetrated by non-state actors. In many cases, perpetrators operate with clear political or institutional protection, while victims faced police inaction, harassment, or even retaliatory charges, further entrenching a climate of impunity as well as eroding public trust in the domestic justice system.
Mass unilateral expulsions of Bengali-speaking Muslims continue under nationwide ‘pushback’ campaign
During the third quarter of 2025, Indian authorities continued their sweeping campaign of arbitrary detentions (also see section on Arrests and Detentions) and unilateral expulsions targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims—many of them Indian citizens—accused of being ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh.
These expulsions, which authorities refer to as ‘pushbacks,’ have been carried out without due process or the cooperation of Bangladeshi authorities. The campaign follows a 2 May directive from the central Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)—in the aftermath of the terror attack in Kashmir in April—instructing all states and Union Territories to detect, identify and deport ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh and Myanmar within thirty days, a policy that has since become the operational basis for coordinated crackdowns across multiple BJP-governed states. While media reports indicate that these instructions also mandated, inter alia, the maintenance of a record of individuals handed over to border forces and the Coast Guard by states for deportation, and the publishing of a list of deportees on a public portal, such details are not available in the public domain, so far.
According to official data released by Bangladesh’s Border Guards, 1880 Muslim men, women and children were expelled between 7 May and 3 July, at 22 border points across multiple states, with at least 110 returned to India after being confirmed by Bangladeshi authorities as being Indian citizens. These reportedly expelled included around 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, who had been inmates of the Matia ‘transit camp’ in Assam. (Separately, also in May following the MHA directive, Indian authorities are reported to have detained over 40 Rohingya refugees from Delhi and forced them off a naval vessel near the Myanmar coast.)
Reports in early-July indicated that expelled individuals had been detained by police in BJP-run states across India, who held them in makeshift detention centres before handing them over to the Border Security Force (BSF), which transported them (via air) and subsequently ‘pushed’ them across the border, often at gunpoint.
The epicentre of the expulsion campaign has remained Assam, which has a long history of anti-Bengali sentiment that has taken an overtly sectarian colour since the rise of the BJP. In late-August, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was reported claiming that ’35-40 people’ were being ‘pushed back’ every week, bringing the total number of those expelled from that state alone since May to over 450. Sarma cited both the MHA’s directive and a February 2024 Supreme Court order directing the deportation of 63 declared ‘foreigners’—by Assam’s quasi-judicial Foreigners Tribunals (FTs)—as justification for the ongoing expulsion campaign.
In June, amid growing ethnonationalist rhetoric against Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, Sarma announced that his government would no longer rely on FTs alone to determine citizenship. In September, the state Cabinet approved a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) under the long-dormant Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, empowering district-level authorities to summon suspected foreigners, demand proof of citizenship, and order their expulsion or detention within24 hours. The SOP bypasses the FTs except in cases where district-level authorities are unable to reach a conclusive decision, allows only ten days for response, and provides no statutory right of appeal. Legal experts described the move as ‘obliterating even the minimalist judicial culture’ that previously existed in the FT regime, and ‘entrenching a regime of arbitrary, opaque, and extra-judicial disenfranchisement targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims.’
Assam had previously undertaken a National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise under Supreme Court supervision, excluding nearly 2 million people in 2019, many of them Bengali-speaking Muslims. While that process was widely criticised as discriminatory and arbitrary, the recent wave of expulsions have bypassed even the limited safeguards offered by the NRC.
Alongside, the central government issued a new notification under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, expanding the powers of Foreigners Tribunals to issue arrest warrants and order detentions—powers previously held by executive authorities. A companion order, the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, exempts non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan from detention or deportation, reinforcing the two-tiered, religion-based citizenship regime introduced by the 2019 Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which fast-tracks the pathway to Indian citizenship for non-Muslims fleeing religious persecution in these countries.
Independent media outlets have continued to document the devastating impacts of the expulsion campaign on affected families. Many reported disappearances of their relatives. Others identified loved ones—many with valid Indian documents—in video footage from Bangladesh.
Testimonies reviewed in July–September 2025 included those of Amir Sheikh, a 19-year-old construction worker from Malda, West Bengal, who was detained by police in Rajasthan on 25 June and expelled to Bangladesh through the Phulbari border post within a week. His family later traced him through a video filmed in Bangladeshi custody. Following a habeas corpus petition before the Calcutta High Court, he was repatriated on 13 August. His family alleged that Border Security Force (BSF) officials attempted to ‘hush up’ the case by returning him quietly before the next court hearing.
Sonali Bibi, a pregnant woman from Birbhum district, West Bengal, was detained with her husband and son in Delhi on 20 June, and expelled within six days to Bangladesh via Assam. They are now imprisoned in Bangladesh. On 26 September, the Calcutta High Court found that the authorities had ‘acted in hot haste’ and ‘clearly violated’ the MHA’s instructions requiring a 30-day verification period before deportation, and directed the central government to secure their return within four weeks.
In Maharashtra, 38-year-old Mehebub Sheikh, a mason from Murshidabad, West Bengal, was detained in Mira Road on 9 June despite producing his Aadhaar and voter ID. Police allegedly destroyed his documents, handed him to the BSF, and forced him across the border at gunpoint. He was repatriated the next day after West Bengal officials intervened. In interviews, he said, ‘I kept saying I am an Indian—they hit me with the butt of a rifle.’
Other cases involved elderly women. Hazera Khatun, aged over 60 from Barpeta, Assam, was detained on 25 May despite her case appealing her FT designation as a ‘foreigner’ being pending before the Gauhati High Court. She described being transported to the Matia detention centre, denied food, and then forcibly taken to the border, where police handed out Bangladeshi currency and ordered her to cross. She and several other women were stranded in the rain before being ‘pushed back’ into India by Bangladeshi officials.
Media reports also revealed that police across BJP-governed states—including Rajasthan, Delhi and Maharashtra—routinely flouted the MHA’s own 30-day verification requirement, detaining and expelling individuals within days without consulting their home-state authorities. Detention and deportation orders were signed by Foreigners Registration Officers rather than through judicial or diplomatic channels. Some detainees were asked to sing the national anthem as a ‘citizenship test,’ while others were extorted for bribes.
While some High Courts—including those of West Bengal and Assam—have ordered the repatriation of some individuals wrongfully expelled to Bangladesh or halted specific ‘push backs,’ there has been no meaningful judicial intervention addressing the broader legality of the ongoing crackdown.
In August, the Supreme Court was reported to have issued notices to the central government and several states based on a public interest petition filed by the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board, which alleged systematic detention and deportation of Bengali-speaking Muslim workers on mere suspicion of foreign origin. The Court questioned the legal basis for such detentions and directed the central government to clarify whether linguistic identity was being used as a presumption of foreignness. The government was also directed to produce a copy of the MHA’s SOP to operationalise its 2 May directives. However, no interim relief was granted, and the mass detentions and expulsions have continued.
These developments—whether the targeting of Bengali-speaking Muslims within India or Rohingya refugees from Myanmar—reflect a dangerous violation of legal protections against arbitrary expulsion, and a growing disregard for India’s obligations under international human rights law. The absence of transparent procedures, case-by-case assessments or access to legal counsel raise serious concerns about violations of the right to liberty and security of person, protection from arbitrary detention, and due process guarantees under the ICCPR, to which India is a party.
Further, while India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the deportation of Rohingya refugees—despite the well-documented risks of persecution and ill-treatment upon return—constitutes a clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement, a binding norm of customary international law that prohibits returning individuals to a real risk of persecution.
- In the third quarter of 2025, India continued to witness escalated levels of ‘top’ and ‘intermediate’ levels of hate speech targeted at religious minorities, particularly Muslims. (‘Top’ level hate speech is prohibited by international law, constituting direct incitement to hostility, discrimination, or violence; ‘Intermediate’ level hate speech may be prohibited by States—and are prohibited by India—to protect the rights or reputations of others, or for the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals. See UN guidance here.)
- Much of the latest surge was concentrated in Assam, where the ongoing, nationwide campaign against so-called ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’ (see sections on Arrests & Detentions and Arbitrary Deportation and Refoulement) fuelled a sustained wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric and mobilisation.
According to India Hate Lab, between just 9 and 30 July 2025, at least 18 hate rallies and protests were held across 14 districts, many led or endorsed by BJP officials and local ethnonationalist groups, featuring hate-filled speeches, slogans such as ‘Bangladeshis go back’ and ‘evict Miyas,’ and open celebration of recent eviction drives (see section on Discrimination in Access to Economic, Social & Cultural Rights).
These events, widely livestreamed and circulated on social media, portrayed Bengali-origin Muslims as ‘infiltrators,’ ‘encroachers,’ and ‘illegal occupants,’ framing arbitrary demolitions and evictions as patriotic acts. India Hate Lab also documented nine incidents of targeted harassment and assault against members of this community during the same period. Analysts noted that this fusion of xenophobic and religious tropes—rooted in the state’s official narrative—has normalised hate speech against Bengali-origin Muslims, further entrenching their portrayal as outsiders and legitimising violence and exclusion under the guise of protecting Assamese identity.
- The head of India’s central government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, delivered yet another fear-mongering hate speech targeting India’s Muslims. At his annual Independence Day address at the Red Fort in Delhi, Modi alleged a ‘conspiracy and well-planned plot’ to alter India’s demography, claiming that ‘infiltrators’ were stealing jobs, ‘targeting our daughters and sisters,’ misleading tribals, and occupying land. Announcing the creation of a ‘high-powered demography mission’ to counter this supposed threat, he declared that the nation ‘would not tolerate’ such infiltration.
The remarks mirrored long-standing and unfounded Islamophobic tropes—such as ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’—and reinforced the ruling party’s portrayal of India’s Muslims, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims, as demographic and security threats.
This was only the latest in a series of speeches in which Modi portrayed India’s Muslims as ‘infiltrators’. During India’s 2024 General Election, Human Rights Watch had documented 110 public speeches in which Modi had made Islamophobic remarks.
In September 2024, a group of UN Special Procedures mandate-holders had issued an allegation letter highlighting such speeches by Modi—as well as those by central Home Minister Amit Shah, and by Yogi Adityanath and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Assam, respectively—and noted: ‘‘Considering the communally and politically charged context in India, the official position, popular following and apparent impunity enjoyed by PM Modi and other high-ranking public officials (speaker), his direct mention of Muslims together with references to demeaning, stereotypical and untrue remarks as well as widely-known conspiracy theories associated with them (content and form), and their seeming intention to wilfully advocate and engage in hateful statements inciting to discrimination, hostility or violence (intent), the speech in question is likely to lead to further hostility, discrimination and potentially violence (likelihood of harm) against India’s Muslims.’
The Indian government has not responded to the allegation letter. None of the officials named in the letter have, so far, been the subjects of formal investigations or criminal prosecution by India’s domestic authorities. Indeed, each of the officials named in the letter has continued to make similar speeches.
A selected list of hate speeches by these leaders in the third quarter of 2025 included:
| Name of leader | Details |
| Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India | 15 August, 2025 (Red Fort, Delhi): In his national Independence Day address, Modi alleged that ‘a deliberate conspiracy’ was underway to alter the country’s demography. He claimed that ‘infiltrators are snatching away the livelihoods of our youth’, ‘targeting our sisters and daughters’, and ‘seizing land’ by misleading tribal communities. Framing this as a national security crisis, he announced the creation of a High-Power Demography Mission to address the threat. Source: official transcript |
| Amit Shah Home Minister of India | 27 September, 2025 (Bihar – multiple locations including Araria, Kosi, Purnea, Bhagalpur): At a series of rallies across Bihar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah pledged that a future NDA government would expel all ‘infiltrators’ from the state. He claimed that ‘not a single genuine voter in Kosi or Seemanchal has lost their vote’ under the revised electoral rolls, asserting that only ‘illegal entrants’ had been removed. He said the election was about ‘driving out infiltrators from every corner of Bihar’ and preventing the return of ‘jungle raj’. He accused Rahul Gandhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav of wanting ‘infiltrators’ to retain voting rights and framed the BJP’s campaign as a defence of Bihar’s ‘sacred land’. Source: news coverage – The New Indian Express |
| Himanta Biswa Sarma Chief Minister of Assam | 19 July, 2025 (Twitter/X): In a widely viewed post on Twitter/X, Sarma claimed that Hindus in Assam are becoming a ‘hopeless minority’ in their own land, and that this demographic shift has taken place ‘over a span of just 60 years’. He wrote: ‘We have lost our culture, our land, our temples. The law gives us no remedy. That’s why we are desperate—not for revenge, but for survival.’ Sarma framed the situation as a lawful but existential fight, warning: ‘Do not stop us. Just do not stop us from fighting for what is ours. For us this is our last battle of survival.’ Source: X 28 July, 2025 (Gorukhuti, Assam): Defending his government’s plan to issue gun licences only to ‘indigenous’ residents of five Muslim-majority districts, Sarma told reporters that he ‘wanted the situation in Assam to be explosive’ and questioned ‘how our people will survive if there is an explosion.’ The comment, made from the site of an earlier eviction drive that displaced Bengali-origin Muslims, was widely condemned as a veiled call for violence and an attempt to communalise the state’s pre-election climate. Source: The Wire 15 August, 2025 (Guwahati, Assam): In his official Independence Day speech, Sarma pledged to continue evictions on government land to ‘free the state from infiltrators’. He warned that if such actions were not taken, Assamese people would lose their ‘jati, mati, bheti’ (identity, land and roots – often invoked in Assamese ethnonationalist rhetoric), and claimed that in 15 years, ‘80% of the ministers’ in Assam would be ‘unfamiliar’. He invoked the Hindutva conspiracy theory of ‘land jihad’, alleging that Muslims had changed the demography of lower and central Assam and were now targeting other regions. Source: news coverage (Scroll) |
| Yogi Adityanath Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh | 28 September, 2025 (Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh): At a public event before the Hindu festival of Vijayadashami, Adityanath warned of severe consequences for any public disorder during festivals. Referring to recent protests by Muslims in Bareilly, he said: ‘If anyone attempts to create mischief during the joy and enthusiasm of festivals, they will have to pay such a price for this mischief that future generations will remember what price has to be paid.’ Invoking ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’—a prophecy in some Islamic hadiths that is referenced by some radical groups about an Islamic conquest of India—he added: ‘Even imagining ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ or dreaming of it will create a path for a ticket to hell.’ He warned that anyone who ‘takes the law into their own hands’, ‘attacks a passing pedestrian’, or ‘pelts stones during festivals’ would be given ‘a one-way ticket to hell.’ He cited the case of a Muslim man who allegedly disguised himself with a Hindu name to accuse ‘anti-national elements’ of infiltrating Balrampur. Adityanath also declared: ‘Laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahi maante’ (a Hindi idiom meaning ‘those who don’t respond to words must be beaten’). He called for public vigilance against people involved in ‘love jihad, religious conversions, anti-national acts, cow slaughter, and cow smuggling.’ Source: news coverage (Siasat) |
- Other senior BJP leaders, including elected parliamentarians, state ministers and state-level legislators, also continued to make public remarks targeting Muslims:
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, on 25 September 2025, described a recruitment-exam paper leak as ‘nakal jihad’ (cheating jihad), coining yet another Islamophobic term in his expanding list of fabricated ‘jihad’ conspiracies. Speaking at a party workshop, Dhami accused ‘coaching and cheating mafias’ of conspiring to carry out ‘nakal jihad’ and vowed not to rest ‘until the mafia is destroyed’. The remark, made amid public protests over unemployment and corruption, exemplified the routine use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by BJP leaders to deflect criticism and stoke communal division.
West Bengal Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA Suvendhu Adhikari, on 12 July 2025, urged Bengalis not to visit ‘Muslim-majority’ areas of Jammu and Kashmir, claiming that tourists were being targeted based on religion. Speaking at a public event, he advised travellers to visit Jammu, Uttarakhand, or Himachal Pradesh instead, remarks widely condemned by opposition parties as an attempt to spread communal fear and stigmatise Kashmiri Muslims.
Maharashtra BJP MLA and minister Nitesh Rane, on 3 July 2025, made a series of Islamophobic remarks while speaking at the state legislature complex, questioning whether ‘those with beards and skull caps’ spoke Marathi and urging Hindus to ‘show strength’ in Muslim-majority areas such as Null Bazaar and Mohammad Ali Road. He further alleged that ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’ were part of a conspiracy to ‘turn the country into an Islamic state’.
Days later, at a public event in Mumbai, Rane described Muslims as ‘green snakes’ that must be ‘killed’, comments widely condemned as openly inciting hatred and violence.
Karnataka BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, on 12 August 2025, announced a cash reward of ₹500,000 (approximately US $6,000) for Hindu men who marry Muslim women, framing it as a campaign to ‘protect Hindu youths’ and accusing the Congress-led state government of favouring minorities.
Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Nandkishore Gurjar, on 8 September 2025, likened Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims to ‘swine’ during a public event in Baghpat, claiming they were ‘being settled here to ruin the country’.
Karnataka BJP MLC C.T. Ravi, on 7 September 2025, delivered a hate-filled speech at a Ganesha Visarjan rally in Mandya district, warning Muslims to ‘behave’ or ‘be beheaded’. He declared that Hindus ‘did not spare Tipu Sultan and his father’ and threatened to ‘bury those who throw stones at us’. A case was later registered against him under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for promoting enmity between religious groups.
Former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, on 30 September 2025, urged Hindu women to avoid Muslim men and said that ‘when the enemy comes, they should be cut in half’. Speaking at a Durga Vahini event in Bhopal, she also urged women not to employ Muslim men for household work and suggested identifying and boycotting Muslim-run shops. Thakur had been accused of involvement in the Malegaon bombings—attacks in a Muslim-majority area that killed six people and injured over 100—but was acquitted earlier this year. (see section on Lack of Effective Remedy)
Kerala BJP spokesperson Pintu Mahadev, on 29 September 2025, said during a live television debate that India’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi ‘will be shot in the chest’ if he ‘harbours ambitions’ like the Gen Z protesters in Nepal who recently overthrew their government. Mahadev also referenced the assassinations of Gandhi’s father, Rajiv Gandhi, and grandmother, Indira Gandhi, both former Prime Ministers of India.
- In September 2025, the BJP’s Assam state unit released an AI-generated video portraying Muslims as ‘illegal immigrants’ and depicting a future ‘Assam without the BJP’ as one overtaken by Muslims, mosques, and Pakistani flags. The video—posted on the party’s official X account—falsely claimed that Muslims would soon comprise 90 per cent of the state’s population, echoing the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.
- India’s mainstream media networks continued to play a central role in amplifying and normalising anti-Muslim narratives. A few illustrative examples from the third quarter of 2025 included:
On Aaj Tak, during an Independence Day eve programme on 14 August, anchor Anjana Om Kashyap aired a segment titled ‘Why was the purpose of India’s Partition not fulfilled?’, claiming that only a fraction of Muslims had migrated to Pakistan and questioned why ‘the remaining’ stayed in India. The broadcast framed Indian Muslims as an unfinished burden of Partition and echoed long-standing Hindu nationalist narratives portraying them as alien to the nation.
On ABP News, during a primetime debate on 24 September, a guest commentator declared that Muslims should ‘not be given equal rights in India’ and called them ‘betrayers’ who ‘got their own country in 1947’. The anchor, Chitra Tripathi, failed to intervene decisively as Ragi repeated slurs and Islamophobic stereotypes, allowing open hate speech to air unchallenged under the guise of debate.
Illustrating the ruling regime’s tacit endorsement of such narratives, on 23 September, the central Ministry of Education approved a government-funded internship for 100 students at Sudarshan News, a channel notorious for conspiracy-laden programming targeting Muslims.
- The Indian film industry too continued to serve as a potent medium for Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim propaganda. Building on the success of earlier titles such as The Kashmir Files and Article 370, two new releases during the quarter recast communal violence through a Hindu nationalist lens.
The Bengal Files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri—who had previously directed The Kashmir Files—portrays Bengal’s Muslim population as perpetrators of violence and ‘illegal immigrants’, linking Partition-era events to present-day ‘demographic threats’. The Udaipur Files, based on the 2022 killing of a Hindu tailor, similarly depicts Muslims as uniformly violent and frames Hindu victimhood as a national crisis.
These films are part of a growing trend in which cinema is deployed to advance Hindu nationalist narratives, distort historical memory, and normalise Islamophobic tropes for mass audiences.
- The third quarter of 2025 also saw a surge in ‘everyday communalism’ campaigns by grassroots Hindu extremist groups allied to the BJP—and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—to continue the normalisation of anti-Muslim hostility in ordinary public life. Across several states, local Hindu nationalist groups and leaders fuelled new conspiracy theories such as ‘jeans jihad’, ‘biryani jihad’, ‘housing jihad’ and ‘rakhi jihad’, portraying routine social or economic activity by Muslims as part of a wider threat.
In Gujarat, Hindutva organisations mobilised mobs outside schools after minor altercations between Hindu and Muslim students, demanding that Muslim children be expelled and vandalising school property. In Karnataka, a local Hindu nationalist leader was arrested for allegedly poisoning a school water tank to force the transfer of a Muslim headmaster. In Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, false rumours of ‘jeans jihad’ led to the closure of Muslim-run garment workshops employing thousands of workers. In Mumbai, a BJP-allied politician accused builders of ‘housing jihad’ for selling apartments to Muslim families, while in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, Muslims providing flood relief or selling rakhis (sacred threads) were branded as part of ‘biryani’ or ‘rakhi jihad’ conspiracies.
- Other high-profile Hindu nationalist figures with large public followings also continued to deliver inflammatory speeches targeting Muslims at public events across the country.
Yati Narsinghanand, an influential Hindu priest who has openly called for the genocide of Muslims on multiple occasions, continued to deliver virulently Islamophobic speeches during the period. On 11 September 2025, addressing a gathering of supporters, he demanded the creation of a ‘Hindu-only nation’ and prayed for a country ‘with no mosques, no madrasas, and no Muslims’. Earlier, on 28 August, Maharashtra police registered an FIR against him for making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad, citing offences related to promoting enmity and disturbing communal harmony. Despite repeated complaints and previous arrests, Narsinghanand has continued to make such statements with impunity.
- Repeat hate speech offenders, at all levels, continued to evade accountability. The Indian Supreme Court’s directives in 2023 requiring all state governments to take suo motuaction in hate speech cases remained unheeded across the country.
During the third quarter of 2025, the BJP-led central and state governments intensified their measures restricting the religious freedom of minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. The period saw the introduction and expansion of anti-conversion laws in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, the criminalisation of peaceful manifestations of Muslim faith in Uttar Pradesh and several other states, and continuing selective demolitions of minority religious structures in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam. The implementation of the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Act also continued, even as the Supreme Court granted limited interim relief to petitioners challenging the law.
The developments highlighted above raise serious concerns under international human rights law as well as domestic constitutional guarantees relating to religious freedom. The right to adopt, change, and manifest one’s religion, including the freedom to worship in public, is a core human right that is to be protected without discrimination or coercion. The measures outlined above appear to unduly limit this freedom.
Muslims among worst affected as Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision leads to deficit of 8.3 million adults from voter rolls
During the third quarter of 2025, the Election Commission of India (ECI) concluded its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls—an unprecedented documentation-heavy re-verification of over 81 million residents ahead of state elections scheduled to begin on 6 November—triggering widespread concern over mass disenfranchisement and the stealth operationalisation of a citizenship screening regime. Officially justified as an effort to ‘purify’ and ensure the integrity of the electoral roll, the SIR was carried out within a compressed 100-day period beginning on 24 June, under opaque procedures that required electors to furnish supporting documentation to confirm their eligibility and permitted election officials to refer ‘suspected foreign nationals’ onward to citizenship authorities.
On 30 September, the ECI released the final electoral roll, which listed 74.2 million electors—down from 78.9 million when the process began—representing a net reduction of nearly 4.7 million names, or almost six per cent of the electorate. The Commission said 6.9 million voters had been removed and 2.1 million added since a draft electoral roll was published on 31 July and the subsequent Claims & Objections period, but offered no clear explanation for the discrepancies or the basis for deletion. Of those excluded, at least 366,000 voters who had appeared in the draft roll were subsequently removed from the final list, without any public disclosure of the reasons for their deletion. Independent analyses comparing the final roll with official population projections found a democratic deficit of around 8.3 million adults who should be eligible to vote but remain unregistered, meaning Bihar’s electorate has shrunk even as its adult population continues to grow. Analysts have warned that the SIR, instead of cleansing the voter roll, has produced one that is numerically smaller, statistically inconsistent, and riddled with duplication and data errors.
Emerging analyses also appears to confirm that the SIR disproportionately affected Muslims. According to psephologists Yogendra Yadav and Rahul Shastri, around 0.6 million Muslims and 1.6 million women were excluded from the final rolls. While Muslims constitute about 17 per cent of Bihar’s population, they accounted for around one-third of the deletions from the final list. In late September, before the final electoral roll was published, a Reporters’ Collective investigation had revealed that local BJP leaders had formally petitioned election authorities to remove over 80,000 Muslim voters on the false pretext that they were ‘foreign nationals.’
Women, too, were found to be missing in far greater numbers from the final electoral roll than before: the gender gap, which had been steadily narrowing for over a decade, has now more than doubled since January 2025. Preliminary district-level analyses based on the draft rolls of 30 August had indicated that exclusion rates were highest in poor, migrant, and Muslim-concentrated districts such as Kishanganj, Araria, and Purnia, and in several opposition stronghold constituencies.
At the same time, large numbers of duplicate, fabricated, and invalid entries remain in the final voter list. An analysis of the final list by The Reporters’ Collective identified over 13 million voters registered under dubious or fake addresses, more than 1.4 million suspected duplicate voters—including at least 0.3 million ‘perfect duplicates’—and tens of thousands of cases of voters holding multiple voter IDs. Another review found over 24,000 gibberish names, 6,000 invalid gender entries, and 200,000 missing addresses. Despite these anomalies, the ECI has refused to release verifiable data explaining deletions or additions, or to disclose how many ‘foreign illegal immigrants’ were identified, although independent analysis appeared to show that only 390 people were removed under that category, of whom 87 were Muslim.
The Indian Supreme Court, which has been monitoring the legality of the exercise, heard final arguments in early October. While declining to stay the process, it ordered the ECI to disclose the details of the 366,000 voters deleted from the draft rolls and to clarify the basis for the 2.1 million additions. The Court also reiterated that it retains the authority to annul the entire exercise if illegality is established. Nonetheless, the ECI has announced plans to replicate the SIR across all states, beginning with Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Kerala in late 2025, citing the Bihar model as precedent.
The Bihar SIR marks a significant escalation in the erosion of the right to vote and the right to nationality in India. By shifting the burden of proof onto individual voters and conflating electoral verification with citizenship determination, it risks creating a vast class of de facto stateless persons. As a State party to core international human rights treaties, India is obligated to guarantee universal and equal suffrage and to ensure that administrative measures do not have discriminatory intent or effect. Yet the evidence from Bihar points to a process that has disproportionately excluded the poor, women, and Muslims, undermines electoral integrity, and sets a dangerous precedent for nationwide disenfranchisement.
During the period under review, BJP-ruled governments continued to discriminate against Muslims in access to housing, education, employment and livelihoods, and cultural life. This included continuing arbitrary and often punitive demolitions and evictions in defiance of Supreme Court orders; the intensification of the crackdown on Islamic madrassas in Uttarakhand; the introduction of religion-based restrictions on inter-religious land transfer in Assam; continuing discrimination faced by Muslim students and parents at educational institutions; denial of medical care on religious grounds; and the escalation of hate campaigns and economic targeting of Muslim-owned businesses and livelihoods by Hindu extremist non-state actors.
As referred to throughout previous sections, India’s domestic mechanisms continued to largely fail to ensure accountability for ongoing and previous violations. The judicial process continued to be skewed towards powerful Hindu nationalist interests, and against minorities. Victims and families seeking justice were routinely harassed and intimidated. And even when India’s courts, including the Supreme Court, have attempted to step in, a sense of permissiveness and impunity has continued to prevail among State and non-State actors accused of violations. The following is a brief overview of recent reports and developments that underscore this lack of effective remedy.
The recent developments noted above highlight worsening systemic barriers to justice for serious human rights violations, as well as discriminatory treatment and conduct of authorities in responding to them. From institutional bias and prosecutorial misconduct to prolonged pre-trial detention, procedural obfuscation, and the failure to implement legal safeguards, domestic mechanisms continued to deny victims and survivors meaningful access to justice. The burden of this denial continues to fall disproportionately on Muslims, reinforcing patterns of impunity and deepening the crisis of accountability in India.
The evidence presented above also further reinforces a broader reality repeatedly highlighted by civil society and international observers in recent months: India’s domestic institutions—including its police, judiciary, NHRI, election authorities, and the media—has increasingly ceased to function as a safeguard against majoritarian abuse, and indeed appear to have become its active enablers.
In June 2025, India marked 50 years since the imposition of Emergency, a 21-month period during which then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties, jailed opposition leaders, and censored the press. While the BJP government sought to commemorate that period as a cautionary tale about authoritarian excess, critics across the political spectrum pointed to striking parallels with India’s present trajectory, which many have described as an ‘undeclared Emergency’ marked by institutional capture, escalating repression, and the normalisation of violence.
During the third quarter of 2025, these concerns gained renewed urgency as the Modi government intensified its targeting of journalists and independent media, civil society organisations, and other political dissenters. Notable developments and continuing trends included:
- Banning of 25 books in Kashmir, followed by raids on bookstores: In early August, Indian authorities in Kashmir banned 25 books by celebrated scholars and journalists, accusing them of ‘misguiding youth’ and promoting secessionism. Police raided bookstores in Srinagar and seized the banned titles, even as the government hosted a state-run book festival nearby. Academics and writers described the move as an attempt by India to erase Kashmir’s historical memory and further tighten control over scholarship and expression in the region.
- Intensification of targeting of journalists and independent media in Assam: In August, Assam Police opened two separate investigations under sedition charges against editors of The Wire, an independent news website, over reporting and interviews published after the April 2025 attack in Kashmir. Separately, also in August 2025, Assam Police registered an FIR under sedition charges against journalist Abhisar Sharma over a video post in which he criticised the state government’s policies.
The same month, multiple criminal complaints were reportedly filed in at least 16 districts against Syeda Hameed, a prominent Muslim academic and activist, after she participated in a civil society fact-finding delegation that had visited Assam to review recent evictions (See section on Discrimination in Access to Economic, Social & Cultural Rights). Sarma also accused Harsh Mandar—another prominent activist, who was part of the same delegation—of mounting a ‘conspiracy’ against Assam during the NRC process in 2019 and stated that he would have ‘put him in jail’ if he were Chief Minister at the time. Local authorities in Assam are reported to have attempted to disrupt the delegation’s fact-finding by imposing prohibitory orders in the locations they had earlier announced they would visit.
The above-mentioned are only the most recent examples illustrating the wider clampdown on civic space by the Assam government under CM Sarma. - Continuing expansion of government powers to censor online content: In July, social media platform X reported that the Indian government had ordered the blocking of 2,355 accounts, including those of international news outlets such as Reuters, under Section 69A of the IT Act. The same month, the Home Ministry reportedly instructed security agencies and online platforms to actively monitor and report ‘anti-national’ content through internal mechanisms, deepening the existing surveillance regime.
In September, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered the removal of more than 200 social media posts referencing the Adani Group, known for its close links to Prime Minister Modi, citing an ex parte court order in a defamation case. Later that month, the Karnataka High Court upheld the government’s Sahyog portal—a recently introduced system that allows officials to issue takedown orders without judicial review—prompting X to announce it would appeal the decision. - Persecution of Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk: In late September, Indian authorities arrested Sonam Wangchuk—a celebrated Ladakhi innovator, educator, and environmentalist—under the draconian National Security Act, which allows imprisonment without trial for up to one year. His detention followed large-scale protests in the Himalayan region of Ladakh demanding constitutional safeguards and the restoration of democratic representation. Police accused him of ‘anti-national’ activity and of instigating violence after a breakaway group of demonstrators clashed with security forces in Leh on 24 September, leaving four people dead and dozens injured. More than 80 others, including several hunger-striking protest leaders, were also detained.
Ladakh, a remote and ecologically fragile region bordering China and Pakistan, was carved out of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state in August 2019 when the Indian government revoked the state’s special constitutional status under Article 370. Ladakh was placed under direct federal administration, without an elected legislature fuelling widespread local resentment. Wangchuk, who had initially supported the change, later emerged as the leading voice in a non-violent movement calling for statehood and protections for Ladakh’s Indigenous and tribal communities under the Sixth Schedule under India’s Constitution.
A day before his arrest, on 25 September, the central Ministry of Home Affairs cancelled the foreign funding license of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), the non-profit he founded, citing alleged violations including the use of foreign funds for projects relating to ‘national sovereignty’ and procedural irregularities. Separately, the Central Bureau of Investigation has opened an inquiry into another of his institutions, the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL), over alleged funding irregularities.
Once celebrated by the BJP government as a national role model for innovation and sustainability, Wangchuk has since been vilified by officials and pro-government media. Authorities baselessly accused him of plotting an ‘Arab Spring-like revolt’ and suggested links to Pakistan. - Home Minister orders probe into ‘financial aspects’ of protests since 1974: In July, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah directed the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) to study all major protests held across India since 1974, including their ‘financial aspects’ and ‘behind-the-scenes players.’ The directive, issued at a National Security Strategies Conference organised by the Intelligence Bureau, called for coordination with enforcement and tax authorities to develop procedures aimed at preventing ‘mass agitations by vested interests.’
- New legislation seeks to remove jailed ministers without conviction: In August, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, in Parliament, triggering uproar from opposition lawmakers who warned it could be used to destabilise opposition-led governments. The Bill proposes that any minister detained for 30 consecutive days on a serious criminal charge automatically lose office, even without conviction. The Bill was later referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for review.