• An elderly imam, on a journey to collect donations for his mosque, was brutally attacked on a train while peacefully reciting the Qur’an.
• A harrowing one-minute video captured the savage assault—including slaps, punches, and the forcible removal of his skull-cap.
An elderly imam—esteemed for his lifelong devotion to serving his community—was savagely attacked while journeying from Gangapur in Rajasthan to Ankleshwar in Gujarat to collect donations for his mosque.
The Hindutva thugs levelled baseless allegations of molestation—claims vehemently denied by his family and unsubstantiated by railway authorities—while he was peacefully reciting the holy Qur’an on the train.
According to the imam’s relatives, hostile passengers escalated the situation by hurling inflammatory and discriminatory slurs at him, with one woman falsely branding him “Pakistani,” which precipitated the brutal assault near the train’s gate. Hindutva supremacists frequently label Indian Muslims as “Pakistanis,” a tactic designed to estrange them from their homeland and further an agenda aimed at expelling minorities from India.
Another thug is heard shouting in Hindi, “Hit him in his private parts!”
The harrowing one-minute video captures the barrage of slaps and punches, as the imam pleads for mercy and even had his skull-cap forcefully removed. This deplorable incident, emblematic of the enduring atrocities inflicted by Hindutva mobs, has sparked widespread condemnation on social media and highlights the ongoing systemic violence that the Indian Muslim community has suffered for decades.
The incident echoes a similar attack in Maharashtra, where an elderly Muslim man was brutally beaten by a mob accusing him of carrying buffalo meat in his bag.
In September last year, 72-year-old Ashraf Ali Sayyed Hussain was traveling by train from Jalgaon to Kalyan when he was assaulted by a group of young men in their 20s, all en route to Mumbai for a police exam, after being falsely accused of possessing “cow meat.”
