From Hate Speech to State Action: How communal vigilantism at Malabar Hill continues unchecked CJP follow-up complaint flags escalating religious profiling, economic exclusion, and institutional silence in Mumbai
05, Jan 2026 | CJP Team
Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has filed an urgent follow-up complaint with the Maharashtra Police and the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), flagging a deeply troubling pattern of communal vigilantism at Malabar Hill, Mumbai — one that has not only continued despite formal complaints, but has escalated into repeated, visible, and material harm to Muslim street vendors.
The complaint, dated December 23, 2025, comes nearly a month after CJP’s initial representation of November 25, 2025, which documented how a politically affiliated individual publicly targeted Muslim vendors through religious profiling, forced identity checks, and inflammatory accusations. The absence of any visible deterrent or corrective action, CJP notes, has emboldened the perpetrator and enabled a series of fresh incidents — transforming hate speech into administrative and police action on the ground.
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A pattern, not isolated incidents
At the heart of CJP’s follow-up complaint is a critical assertion: what is unfolding at Malabar Hill is not a series of sporadic outbursts, but a continuing and aggravated course of conduct.
Across multiple dates — November 13, December 6, and December 17, 2025 — the same individual has repeatedly targeted Muslim street vendors by appearance and presumed religious identity, invoking communal conspiracy theories such as “land jihad,” “illegal Aadhaar,” and “national security threats.” Each time, these public accusations were followed by immediate and tangible consequences: removal of vendors’ stalls, disruption of livelihood, and police intervention.
The cumulative effect, the complaint argues, is the systematic conversion of a public marketplace into a site of religious policing — where Muslim citizens are publicly cast as illegal, dangerous, and undeserving of economic survival.
Details of the previous complaint may be read here.
December 6: “Land jihad” and the criminalisation of livelihood
On December 6, 2025, a video widely circulated on social media captured the accused individual publicly accusing Muslim hawkers at Malabar Hill of engaging in “land jihad” — a loaded communal trope that frames ordinary economic activity as covert territorial aggression.
Soon after these statements, the vendors’ stalls were removed and the vendors themselves were handed over to the police.
The complaint underscores that such rhetoric is not casual or rhetorical. By deploying conspiratorial language in a crowded public market, lawful vending activity was reframed as an anti-national act, effectively legitimising coercive action against an entire religious group without any due process.
December 17: “Illegal Aadhaar” and national security paranoia
Barely eleven days later, on December 17, 2025, the same individual returned to Malabar Hill to once again target Muslim vendors — this time alleging, without evidence, that they possessed “illegal Aadhaar cards” and posed a threat to national security. He openly declared his intent to emulate extremist campaigns against so-called “illegal Muslim immigration.”
Once again, these statements were followed by the removal of Muslim vendors’ stalls.
CJP highlights the gravity of such allegations: claims of “illegal Aadhaar” directly impute fraud, foreignness, and criminality, placing individuals at immediate risk of detention, harassment, and vigilante violence — particularly when made by politically connected actors in public spaces.
Vigilantism enabled by silence
The follow-up complaint raises serious questions about preventive policing and institutional accountability. When a private individual can repeatedly:
- Declare members of a religious community “illegal” or “anti-national”
- Publicly demand police action
- Successfully trigger eviction, detention, or livelihood loss
— without restraint or prosecution, it signals the emergence of a parallel system of authority, where hate speech substitutes for lawful governance. This silence, the complaint warns, does not merely fail victims; it actively legitimises communal intimidation and encourages imitation — both within Mumbai and beyond.
Markets as sites of exclusion
Street vendors are among the most economically vulnerable groups in urban India. Repeated eviction and public humiliation based on religious suspicion strike directly at the right to livelihood and dignity protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.
CJP’s complaint powerfully situates these incidents within Mumbai’s fraught communal history, warning that branding Muslims as “security threats” in crowded urban markets risks triggering panic, retaliation, and public disorder. When shared civic spaces are transformed into zones of surveillance and exclusion, they cease to be neutral — becoming theatres of majoritarian dominance.
Economic punishment as communal control
What emerges from the Malabar Hill incidents is a form of targeted economic punishment — where Muslim citizens are made to understand that their right to earn a living is contingent on communal acceptability. Such practices amount to collective penalty based purely on religious identity, enforced not through law, but through intimidation, spectacle, and administrative complicity.
The complaint identifies a range of serious offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, including promoting enmity between groups, imputations prejudicial to national integration, criminal intimidation, public mischief, and unlawful assumption of public authority. The repetition and continuity of acts, CJP notes, satisfy the threshold for continuing offences.
Constitutionally, the incidents amount to serial violations of Articles 14, 15(1), 19(1)(g), 21, and 25 — eroding secularism, equality, and fraternity as lived principles.
A call for urgent intervention
Through this follow-up complaint, CJP has urged:
- Immediate registration of a comprehensive FIR covering all incidents
- Accountability for any police or civic officials who acted on unlawful verbal directions
- Clear prohibitory orders against private identity checks and religious profiling
- Restoration of livelihood and protection for affected vendors
- Robust intervention by the National Commission for Minorities, including summoning the accused and issuing national advisories
At stake, CJP warns, is not merely the fate of a few vendors — but the integrity of constitutional governance in everyday life. Allowing hate speech to translate into state action normalises religious vigilantism as governance, hollowing out citizenship from the ground up.
Unchecked, such practices threaten to make exclusion ordinary — and injustice routine.
The complete complaint may be read here.
Image: jernih.co
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