New Delhi: A state body, by action or by failing to act, was involved in 119 of the 322 hate crimes against Muslims and Christians recorded in the first nine months of 2026, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) said in two reports released on Tuesday (November 10). Of the 54 people killed as a result of a hate crime, 21 of them died at the hands of the police or the army.The Hate Crime Tracker covers January 1 to September 30 across 24 states and Union Territories. A companion Hate Speech Tracker for the same period recorded 83 hate speeches by 57 speakers in at least 16 states, 33 of them by people holding public office. For non-fatal attacks by private actors, an arrest was reported in only 12 of 94 incidents (13%).APCR calls its figures a record of what was reported, not a full count. The hate crimes report says about 60 of the 322 entries still need checking and totals may shift slightly.State actors took part in 37% of hate crimes, 21 of 54 deaths were by the hand of the stateThe police were involved in 81 of the 119 incidents. Twelve people died in police or army ‘encounters’, among them are the brothers Zeeshan and Gulfam, carpenters from Amroha who were killed in separate alleged encounters in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, on March 1 and 3, days after they were named as suspects in a stabbing.Nine others died in custody or prison, including Zaheer Shaikh, 70, who died in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a day after he was arrested by the state police over alleged cow slaughter.“If my sons committed a crime, they should have been arrested and taken to court,” the brothers’ father, Buniyad Ali, was quoted as saying in the APCR report.Anish, 34, a vegetable-market worker, also died in Delhi Police custody. “My son was completely fine when he left home. Police beat him to death,” his mother is quoted as saying by APCR.The report says no police officer or soldier has been charged over any of the 21 deaths that occurred in the custody of either of the forces. An inquiry or first information report (FIR) was ordered in only four cases of the 21. In Zaheer Shaikh’s case, it took a Supreme Court order to have a police case registered, and the FIR names no suspect.Forty FIRs were filed against the victims of hate crimes, not the attackersOf the 108 incidents in which an FIR was filed, 40 (37%) targeted the people attacked. Twenty-one of those were in Uttar Pradesh. A cattle raid, in which the police participated along with civilians in Surat, Gujarat, ended with the arrest of 22 Muslim men.In Assam, three young men went to jail for creating a WhatsApp group to organise a protest, although they had asked the police for permission. “People from other communities are not being arrested. But we are Muslims,” the fathers of the three men are quoted as saying.The report adds that demolitions continued despite the Supreme Court’s 2024 guidelines. It lists a century-old mosque razed inside the Saharanpur Collectorate and the eviction of 73 Muslim families in Goalpara on 24 hours’ notice.Violence followed the calendar: 58% of incidents fell in three periods covering 37% of the daysRamzan, Holi and Ram Navami; the West Bengal election results and Bakr Eid and the Kanwar Yatra together account for 187 of 322 hate incidents and 28 of the 54 deaths, the report says. Meat and cattle were the most common trigger, behind one in four incidents and 11 deaths. In West Bengal, APCR’s fact-finding recorded 34 incidents across eight districts in the four days after the election results.Incidents tied to Muslim festivals (40) were mostly restrictions and intimidation, and none was fatal. Those tied to Hindu festivals and processions (21) were fewer but included two killings.In 20 of 30 killings by mobs or individuals, some or all of those responsible were still freeOf the 54 people killed in the 322 hate-crime incidents recorded by APCR, 33 were killed by mobs, vigilantes, individuals or small groups, while 21 died in incidents involving state actors — 12 in police or army encounters and nine in custody or prison. The report separately examines 30 fatal incidents involving mobs, vigilantes or individuals.It found that all main accused had been arrested in only 10 of these 30 incidents. In nine cases, some accused had been arrested while others remained free, while no arrests were reported in the remaining 11 incidents. This means that in at least 20 of the 30 incidents, some of those responsible were still free.In at least five killings, the report says, police were slow to register the crime or first acted against the victim. Azeem, a pickup driver beaten into a coma by participants in the Kanwar Yatra, was himself charged with attempted murder before his attackers were arrested.The report opens with the 54th person killed, Saikun Khan, 40, a farmer from Alwar in Rajasthan. On September 24, a man crushed his head with a stone outside the Baroda Meo police station, it says. A villager says the attacker shouted: “Today I have killed one m***a, now I will kill more.” Police call the accused mentally disturbed and deny any religious motive.Thirty-three of the 83 hate speeches came from people holding public officeEleven were made by chief ministers or by a deputy chief minister, the Hate Speech Tracker says, counting among the offenders chief ministers including Adityanath, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Pushkar Singh Dhami and Suvendu Adhikari, and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.The report also lists Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Kolkata on March 14, in which, it says, he spoke of ‘infiltrators’ changing Bengal’s demography. It says Union home minister Amit Shah promised twice in March to remove ‘infiltrators’. The report does not include responses from those named.Also read: ‘They Removed My Sari, Tore My Blouse’: Christian Families in Bengal Village Face Days of Assault, Allege Bajrang Dal RoleThirty-seven of the 83 speeches called for violence or for Hindus to arm themselves. About a dozen people account for nearly 50 of the speeches and clips, and another seven of them hold public office. The police registered five FIRs across those, and none of the twelve was arrested.Six of the 83 speeches drew FIRs, and the only arrests were over graffitiOf the 33 speeches by office holders, two drew an FIR, both against the legislator T. Raja Singh after Muslim citizens complained. The one arrest was of three Hindu Raksha Dal members for painting anti-Islam graffiti.In Shaheen Abdulla v. Union of India, the Supreme Court ordered police in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in October 2022 to register hate speech cases without waiting for complaints. It extended the order to every state in April 2023. APCR found one FIR described as suo motu in 2026, in Seoni Malwa in Madhya Pradesh. “An FIR that is never followed by an arrest or charge sheet does not stop speech,” the report says.Sixty of 110 clips about one Delhi neighbourhood demanded that Muslims be killed, shot or ‘encountered’The report’s second part examines Uttam Nagar in west Delhi. On March 4, Holi, Tarun, 26, died after a fight between two neighbouring families living in a JJ Colony in the area. One of the families faced arrests by Delhi Police, including of two minors. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was applied, because Tarun was a Dalit. The report says nobody disputes that Tarun was killed and that the accused were arrested quickly.However, within days, men from Dehradun, Meerut and Raebareli were speaking into microphones in Delhi’s lanes. APCR coded 110 clips: 60 demanded killings or ‘encounters’ of innocent Muslim residents, and 23 demanded that homes or mosques be bulldozed.“Arresting four people is no use. We want Yogi ji’s model – encounter them,” said one unidentified speaker on March 7. On March 8, Lalit Sharma, identified as the Uttarakhand state president of the Hindu Raksha Dal, said, “Either the police shoot them, or we will not let their Eid happen.”The report calls this the most important change it sees in hate speech in 2026: the crowd now addresses the state, and the demand is for killing outside the law. Of the 110 clips, 79 were on Instagram.The Delhi high court on March 19 directed police to ensure a ‘peaceful and dignified’ Eid. Residents filed the petition through APCR’s lawyers. Police told the court they had deployed about 800 personnel, and Eid prayers on March 21 passed without violence. “Prevention worked for one day,” the report says, adding that it found no FIR for any Uttam Nagar speech in the reporting it could find.‘Hate has become a method of conducting politics’At the programme, Advocate, Fawaz Shaheen, described a shift from hate crime as planned, structural violence to “a regular method of conducting politics”, APCR said in a statement accompanying the reports. Sayed Aqsa, lead researcher of Hate Crimes, said state institutions take part in the propagation of hate speech and acts by refusing to register FIRs or by standing by during violent episodes.Also read: ‘When a Prayer Becomes a Crime’: Anti-Christian Violence in Madhya PradeshShe distinguished cases in which the state merely failed to act from those in which it was a party to the violence, the release says.Journalist Nidheesh Tyagi said the state is either complicit or incompetent and, referring to the prime minister, said that if he wanted, he could have stopped these crimes. Political activist John Dayal said hate speech is not an ordinary conversation but something that leads to violence. Syeda Hameed raised concerns about the harassment of those documenting hate crimes.APCR called for accountability, enforcement of the Supreme Court’s directions and protection for people who document violations.Aliya Akbar is an editorial intern at The Wire.