A new report has confirmed the fears that a peaceful region has been turned into an arena of radicalism.
नफरती घोड़े की सियासत पर सवार उत्तराखंड की धामी सरकार
Bulleh Shah is hailed as the ‘Father of the Punjabi Enlightenment.’ He was a Sufi saint whose extraordinary compositions espoused themes of love, unity, and spiritual liberation. Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims alike hold him in high esteem. On the night of January 24, 2026, a group of Hindu Raksha Dal hardliners trespassed into the Wynberg-Allen School in Mussoorie and demolished his shrine. They asserted that this century-old structure constituted an illegal encroachment upon their ‘Devbhumi’ (Land of the Gods). Consider the extent of their confidence—so certain were they that no action would be taken against them, that they even uploaded a video of themselves using hammers and rods to smash the shrine. The Uttarakhand Police registered an FIR against three individuals, yet no arrests were made.
In November 2025, another century-old shrine situated within the premises of The Doon School was razed at the behest of a different Hindutva group led by the hate-monger Radha Dhoni. Dhoni heads a right-wing organization named ‘Sanatan Sanskriti,’ whose apparent objective is to target Muslim shopkeepers, roadside tea vendors, and street hawkers.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami—whose own son is a student at The Doon School—takes pride in publicly declaring that, under his administration, more than 400 ‘illegal’ shrines have been demolished. Citing surveys conducted by his own officials, Dhami claims that his government has reclaimed 5,000 acres of land from ‘Land Jihadis.’
Two activists resolved to uncover the truth behind this anti-Muslim propaganda. Traversing every corner of Uttarakhand, they documented how, between 2021 and 2025, Muslims were systematically subjected to violence—an orchestrated campaign that forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes and become refugees within their own country. Titled ‘Excluded, Targeted, and Displaced: Communal Narratives and Violence in Uttarakhand,’ this report was published by the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) on January 22. The report confirms how a once-peaceful state has transformed into a hotbed of radicalism.
This hate campaign began in December 2021 at the Haridwar Dharma Sansad, where Yati Narsinghanand, Prabodhanand Giri, Yatindranand Giri, Sadhvi Annapurna, Swami Anand Swaroop, and Kalicharan Maharaj openly called for the establishment of a ‘Hindutva Rashtra’ and the killing of Muslims. Their speeches fueled a surge in violence, economic boycotts, and hate crimes—culminating in the 2023 Purola incident, where Muslim families were forced to sell their properties and flee following a false accusation of kidnapping.
This model subsequently spread to districts such as Uttarkashi, Tehri, Chamoli, and Gairsain. Chief Minister Dhami openly stoked communalism by invoking terms like ‘Zameen Jihad,’ ‘Mazar Jihad,’ ‘Thook Jihad,’ and ‘Love Jihad.’ In its annual report, the ‘India Hate Lab’ identified the Uttarakhand Chief Minister as the ‘Most Prolific Hate Speech Giver’ of 2025; just days later, Dhami stated that he ‘accepts this tag.’ His latest decree involves banning the entry of non-Hindus into the Kedarnath and Badrinath temples.
A key feature of the APCR report is that it documents the testimonies of victims of the orchestrated violence in Uttarakhand. Most disturbingly, the police have remained mute spectators, frequently refraining from taking action against the perpetrators in the majority of cases. Several instances are particularly noteworthy:
On October 23, 2024, right-wing groups led by Swami Darshan Bharti—the head of the ‘Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan’—staged a rally in Barahat, Uttarkashi, demanding the demolition of a mosque. Muslim-owned shops were vandalized and looted during the incident. Reshma Hussain (37), the sole earning member of a family of four, said, “They broke the lock on my shop and barged inside. I suffered a loss of approximately ₹1 lakh.”
In the nearby town of Srinagar, a local BJP leader, Lakhpat Singh Bhandari, instigated the exodus of 15 Muslim families. The people were forced to flee to Najibabad. Shoaib Akhtar, a teacher at a government school in Srinagar, remarked, “Lakhpat Bhandari was invited as the chief guest to an event where the principal—of the very school where I teach—spoke about ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘Land Jihad.’ If a principal makes such remarks in public, what kind of impact will it have on the students?”
At the same school, an English teacher asked Ahmed, a Class 12 student, why people like him were encroaching upon land to construct illegal mosques. Ahmed says, “What land have I encroached upon? It feels as though I am being singled out and targeted.”
Mukesh Semwal, a social activist residing in Srinagar, believes that this communal unrest was deliberately fomented to ensure a BJP victory in the Kedarnath Assembly elections. Following the loss of the Ayodhya and Badrinath seats, the Kedarnath election had become a crucial battleground. Communal tensions in Chaura worsened in August 2024 when right-wing groups forced five Muslim shopkeepers and their families to flee the town. The provocation? A Hindu woman and a Muslim man from Najibabad were allegedly in a relationship. Wasim, the father of the young man accused of “Love Jihad,” stated, “They were just friends. Is friendship a crime? Are our children expected to scrutinize a person’s religion before striking up a friendship? They drove us out based solely on rumors. Even the girl’s family never lodged a complaint against my son.”
Fifty-year-old Tasim Ahmed has been residing in the town of Gauchar, in the Chamoli district, for the past 45 years. On October 15, 2024, his brother got into an altercation with a Hindu over parking his scooter. In response, the Hindutva brigade forced ten Muslim shopkeepers to leave the town.
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