AhlulBayt News Agency: At least 16 Muslims were killed by state forces and extremist groups in India between August and October 2026, while more than 100 Muslim men were wounded in police shootings, according to a new report by a human rights monitoring organisation.
The India Persecution Tracker, affiliated with the South Asia Justice Campaign, has reported a sharp escalation in violence against the Muslim minority and structural discrimination across the country over the past three months.
eight of the 16 deaths occurred in incidents involving state forces across six states. Three Muslims were killed in police shootings, while five died in detention facilities or prisons. The remaining eight were killed by extremist groups in four states, including organisations commonly referred to as cow vigilantes.
With these latest cases, the number of Muslims killed by state actors in India since the beginning of 2026 has reached at least 27. The report also identifies 2026 as the deadliest year since the monitoring initiative began collecting data in January 2022, in terms of killings of Muslims by non-state actors.
Uttar Pradesh, governed by Hindu nationalist leader Yogi Adityanath, accounted for the largest share of reported violence, with 103 of the 146 incidents recorded during the three-month period.
Police Shootings and Allegations of Fake Encounters
The report states that Indian police shot and wounded at least 118 Muslim men across the country during the period, in operations described as “fake encounters”. Of these incidents, 105 took place in Uttar Pradesh.
In such operations, police officers reportedly shoot suspects, often in the legs, before formally taking them into custody. Most of those targeted have faced allegations related to cattle smuggling or cow slaughter.
A separate investigation by the Associated Press found that nearly 93 per cent of people shot by Uttar Pradesh police in cases involving suspected cattle smuggling since 2020 were Muslims.
Official police figures also indicate that 110 of the 316 people killed in armed encounters with police in Uttar Pradesh since 2017 were Muslims, despite Muslims making up approximately 19 per cent of the state's population.
Anti-Muslim Rhetoric and Political Pressure
The report also documents numerous incidents of assaults against Muslims accompanied by religious insults and humiliation.
It recorded 29 instances of hate speech targeting Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, 13 of which were attributed to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Statements by Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam, and Pushkar Singh Dhami, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, were also cited as examples of anti-Muslim rhetoric by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Electoral Restrictions and Displacement of Muslims
The human rights organisation expressed concern over revisions to electoral rolls and the removal of more than 133 million names from preliminary voter lists across India since 2025.
coordinated objections seeking to remove Muslim voters from electoral rolls have been recorded in at least five states, raising concerns about the systematic exclusion of members of the minority community from their voting rights.
Debate within the Indian government over implementing a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) has also heightened fears that Bengali-speaking Muslims could face discrimination during citizenship verification processes.
The report further states that at least six mosques were partially or completely demolished in four Indian states during September.
In Assam, more than 1,100 families, most of them Bengali-speaking Muslims, were evicted from three areas in October. A separate investigation found that at least 20,387 families had been displaced during 33 eviction operations in the state since 2021.
The report warns that the combined impact of police violence, Hindu nationalist political rhetoric, citizenship-related measures and administrative decisions is placing the security and fundamental rights of India's Muslim minority under growing pressure.
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