An Indian Hindu family has been attacked several times by extremists since July this year but the local police refused to register a case of ‘hate crime,’ reported British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The incident took place in the West Midlands county of England. As per the report by BBC, the victims were identified as Ramana Nagumalli, his wife Radhika Kulkarni and their 8-year-old daughter.
The Hindu family had reported 5 instances of harassment to the West Midlands police in July this year. In one incident, the couple and their minor daughter were surrounded by a mob outside a local leisure centre.
Recently, the same men came to their house and began kicking their front door. The victims were also called ‘Kafirs’, a dehumanising term used by radical Islamists to refer to non-Muslims.
Victims speak out
The situation has become so grim that the Indian Hindu family is now afraid to leave their house and step outside. While speaking about their ordeal, Radhika Kulkarni stated, “I was shivering outside, I was just crying. I wasn’t able to sleep. We didn’t do anything to anyone. Why is this hate there?”
“They just grabbed us and made a circle around us. I got scared, I held my daughter’s hand and I just ran away,” she narrated her ordeal. The victim emphasised, “We’ve gone through so much, emotionally and mentally. We wanted them to be punished, in some way.”
“We don’t want to live in fear. Everyone wants to live peacefully. We don’t want anyone to go through what we’ve been through,” she said, adding that the family has been having nightmares and panic attacks.
Police stress on community resolution, label attacks as ‘not hate crime’
Their complaint to the West Midlands police has so far failed to elicit any meaningful action. While responding to an email by the BBC, the cops said that there was no sufficient evidence to treat the crime as ‘racially aggravated offence.’
Although the police informed that the accused men confessed to harassing the couple and their 8-year-old daughter and a ‘detailed investigation’ was underway, the criminal offence was not regarded as a ‘hate crime.’
A police spokesperson told BBC, “(This included) speaking to the victims and the young people responsible for the offences at length…The parents of the young people were supportive of police action and we are satisfied that a community resolution was the correct step to take given the young age of the people involved and their history of non-offending.”
The Indian Hindu family emphasised that the police should have charged the miscreants with hate crimes so that others would not face their ordeal. According to the BBC, there has been a sharp rise in hate crimes (251% increase) from 2531 (2011-2012) to 8897 (2022-2023) in West Midlands area.
Hindu students in UK face racial discrimination, reveals think tank
A study conducted by the UK-based think tank, Henry Jackson Society, in April this year has found that Hindu students in the country are being subjected to bullying and racial discrimination in classrooms.
It was carried out by a research fellow named Charlotte Littlewood, who interviewed 988 Hindu parents and surveyed more than 1000 schools in the United Kingdom.
As per a report by The Telegraph, Littlewood noted that Hindu students were being bullied by their Muslim classmates and repeatedly asked to convert to Islam.
“51% of Hindu parents surveyed reported that their child had experienced anti-Hindu hate in schools, while less than 1% of schools surveyed reported any anti-Hindu related incidents in the last 5 years,” the study found.
“8 physical assaults were detailed. One female Hindu pupil had beef thrown on her, a male student was reported to have to change East London schools three times on account of anti-Hindu bullying and concerns have been risen around a problematic approach to teaching Hinduism that is directly leading to bullying in the classroom,” it further added.
Charlotte Littlewood noted that several Hindu students were mocked for their vegetarianism in classrooms and that their deities were belittled in a manner reminiscent of the radical Islamists that attacked the Hindu community in Leicester.