Islam Times - India Police Probe anti-Muslim Hate Speech by Hindu Religious Leaders

Islam Times - Videos in which Hindu religious leaders are calling for violence and ethnic cleansing of Muslims in India are being investigated by police.

Indian police said on Friday they had launched a hate-speech investigation into last week’s event in Haridwar, in northern Uttarakhand state, in which participants called for the mass killings of Muslims and use of weapons against them.

Videos of the religious gathering in the northern city of Haridwar in Uttarakhand went viral earlier in the week.

"We have taken note of the videos, which were going viral and spreading hatred through provocative speeches against a particular religion," the police chief of Uttarakhand, Ashok Kumar, said.

"We have also asked social media platforms to block the videos."

The videos sparked widespread outrage.

Prominent Muslim lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi wrote on Twitter that the videos were a "clear case of incitement to genocide."

Abuse of Muslims have been on rise in India

Abuse of Muslims have been on rise in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Muslims across India continue to fall victim to government-sanctioned harassment and hate crimes by extremist Hindu elements as well as discriminatory regulatory policies.

Since his rise to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a member of the hardline Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Hindu nationalist group, has emboldened extremist groups that view India as a Hindu nation and consider its 200-million-strong Muslim minority as a foreign threat.

A recent string of lynchings of Muslims by Hindu mobs for the so-called cow protection as well as other hate crimes has cast fear and despair among the large community in India, according to local and international press reports.

Several states across the country have proposed or enacted legislation criminalizing conversion to Islam and Christianity, including through marriage.