At least 16 Muslims were killed by state and non-state actors across India between August and October this year, amid a rise in anti-Muslim violence, according to a quarterly report by the South Asia Justice Campaign (SAJC).
The third quarterly review of the organisation's India Persecution Tracker (IPT) for 2026 documented eight deaths involving state actors across six states, including three in alleged police encounters and five in custody or prison.
Another eight Muslims were killed by cow vigilantes and other non-state actors across four states during the same period, the report said. West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of such killings, with three each.
The latest figures bring the number of Muslims killed by state actors in India this year to at least 27. With two months remaining in 2026, the year has already become the deadliest for such killings since the tracker began collecting data in January 2022.
Uttar Pradesh accounted for 103 of the 146 incidents documented in the report, highlighting the scale of anti-Muslim violence in the state ahead of its next assembly election.
The report also documented the growing use of coercive policing and anti-Muslim rhetoric in the state. Police shot more than 100 Muslim men, mostly in operations linked to cattle-related cases, while Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath delivered nearly half of the hate speeches recorded in Uttar Pradesh.
State police data released in October showed that 110 of the 316 people killed in police encounters in Uttar Pradesh since 2017 were Muslims, accounting for around 35% of the total. Muslims make up approximately 19% of the state's population.
Between August and October, police also shot and wounded at least 118 Muslim men in so-called half-encounters, in which suspects are allegedly shot, usually in the legs, before formal arrest. Of these incidents, 105 occurred in Uttar Pradesh, with most of the victims accused in cattle-related cases.
An Associated Press investigation published last month found that nearly 93% of the identified individuals among around 650 people shot by Uttar Pradesh police in alleged cow-smuggling cases since 2020 were Muslims.
The report further noted that police officers continued to receive rewards for such shootings. On August 13, the Allahabad High Court, while ordering a federal inquiry into one such incident, observed that all 23 officers involved had been rewarded for their alleged work.
The report documented dozens of assaults on Muslims across at least 10 states during the three-month period. Many incidents involved victims being forced to chant religious slogans, including 'Jai Shri Ram', or subjected to other forms of religious humiliation.
Christians were also targeted, particularly in West Bengal, the report said.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric by political leaders intensified in several states facing elections. The chief ministers of four BJP-ruled states—Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam and Uttarakhand—made remarks targeting Muslims during the reporting period.
In Uttar Pradesh, the SAJC's Election Watch documented at least 29 anti-Muslim hate speeches between August and October, 13 of which were delivered by Adityanath.
At an event on October 7, the chief minister described the upcoming election as an '80 versus 20' contest, a remark widely interpreted as referring to the state's religious demographics.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also made a controversial remark at a by-election rally on October 1 while responding to a Muslim Congress MP, saying that those born to drink their mother's milk were human beings, while those born to eat biryani were animals.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, meanwhile, said at a programme in Haldwani on August 29 that his government would not allow demographic changes in the state and would not tolerate conversion, encroachment or what he described as 'jihad'.
On October 6, defending the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Dhami questioned whether infiltrators should be allowed to vote.
The report also raised concerns over the disenfranchisement and expulsion of Bengali-speaking Muslims, many of whom have been labelled illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
By mid-October, the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, covering 18 states and Union territories, had removed more than 61 million names from draft voter lists. The total number of names removed since the exercise began in Bihar in 2025 had exceeded 133 million.
In at least five states, bulk objections were filed using Form 7, which is intended for an individual voter to challenge a single name on the electoral roll, to seek the removal of Muslim voters.
In West Bengal, appeals tribunals had decided only 126,194 of the 3.83 million appeals by mid-September, leaving millions of people without an effective remedy, the report said.
On September 13, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government was discussing a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) with its allies to identify and remove what he called illegal infiltrators.
A Home Ministry committee examining demographic changes also sought 15 years of religion-wise data from states on births, school enrolment, property transactions and religious structures.
The committee's terms of reference focus on illegal immigration, including detention and deportation. By mid-October, it had launched an online portal inviting submissions of evidence concerning demographic changes.
The report also raised concerns over the proposed 2027 Census questionnaire, which will seek respondents' parents' names, dates and places of birth, as well as their religion. It argued that the collection of such information could have implications amid plans for a nationwide NRC.
The report documented a rise in expulsions of people accused of being undocumented Bangladeshi nationals.
Mumbai Police said they had deported 1,066 people identified as Bangladeshis by the end of August this year, exceeding the total number deported throughout 2025.
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the Gauhati High Court ordered the Assam government to compensate the families of two women who were forcibly pushed across the border into Bangladesh and remain missing.
The report also highlighted a series of administrative and legal measures in BJP-governed states that it said contributed to the exclusion of religious minorities.
At least six mosques in four states were fully or partially demolished in September alone. In West Bengal, the state government ordered the closure of 252 madrasas and removed 5,299 loudspeakers, around 4,200 of them from mosques, according to figures cited by the chief minister.
Anti-conversion laws also came into effect in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, while the President approved Uniform Civil Code bills in Gujarat and Assam, which the report said override Muslim personal laws.
In Assam, more than 1,100 families, most of them Bengali-speaking Muslims, were evicted across three districts in mid-October.
A separate investigation by The New Humanitarian found that 20,387 families had been displaced in at least 33 eviction drives carried out under the Himanta Biswa Sarma government since 2021.