Communal slurs. Threats. A campaign centred on a judge’s religious identity.

This is how some Hindutva footsoldiers have decided to respond to a verdict in a 2022 mob lynching case in Madhya Pradesh.

On June 12, Tabassum Khan, Additional District and Sessions Judge of Narmadapuram district, had sentenced 14 men to life imprisonment for the killing of truck driver Sheikh Lala Nazir Ahmed in Seoni Malwa tehsil’s Barakhar village. 

While protests against a verdict may be a lawful part of public life, what has followed Khan has gone well past that. There has been a deliberate effort to recast a lynching verdict as a Hindu-Muslim issue because the judge who delivered it is Muslim. Cow vigilante groups have burned her effigy and branded her “anti-Hindu”. Some have filled social media with abusive posts.

The hostility isn’t confined to vigilante groups online. Suresh Chavhanke, owner of Sudarshan News, used his platform to brand the court’s verdict a “judicial lynching”. On air, he declared: “We stand with all the gau-rakshaks (cow protectors) and their families. This fight is not yours alone; it is ours too.”

14 गौ रक्षकों को उम्रक़ैद.. जज तबस्सुम ख़ान के फैसले पर न्याय संग्रामदेखें #बिंदास_बोल मेरे साथ @DrMohanYadav51 https://t.co/4gJZkzlUfh— Dr. Suresh Chavhanke “Sudarshan News” (@SureshChavhanke) June 19, 2026

14 गौ रक्षकों को उम्रक़ैद.. जज तबस्सुम ख़ान के फैसले पर न्याय संग्रामदेखें #बिंदास_बोल मेरे साथ @DrMohanYadav51 https://t.co/4gJZkzlUfh

An FIR has now been registered at Seoni Malwa police station over the social media campaign against the judge, especially a video in which a man spoke communal slurs and warned of a “bloodbath” if the verdict was not struck down. 

Station House Officer Sudhakar Bhaskar confirmed the action: “Taking suo motu cognisance, we registered an FIR on June 23 against two individuals who made comments on social media. A case has been registered against them under Sections 302 and 196(1) of the BNS. With the help of the cyber cell, we are trying to trace the origin of the viral video and identify who circulated it. We continue to monitor social media.”

‘Earlier, there was suo motu cognisance’

Khan refused to comment for this story citing “judicial decorum”.

However, advocate Hazari Lal Gurjar, president of the court’s bar association, questioned the lack of suo motu cognisance when a woman judge was receiving “death threats” and her “religion is being targeted”. “Previously, suo motu cognisance used to be taken in such cases, but now High Court judges are sitting idly by. A woman is being subjected to vile, gender-based abuse… I am the Bar President, but tell me, what can I do? What is the High Court Chief Justice doing? Shouldn’t they be initiating contempt of court proceedings? It is shocking that not only these people but also some journalists from news channels are engaging in this behaviour.”

Gurjar says the situation had turned communal on the day of the verdict itself. “The families of those 14 individuals had also come to court that day. As soon as the police began arresting and taking them away after the verdict, their relatives started protesting. They lay down in front of the police vehicle; the police had difficulty removing them from the spot. That was the day this entire matter was given a Hindu-Muslim colour.”

मध्य प्रदेश के नर्मदापुरम जिले में 3 अगस्त 2022 को कथित गोरक्षकों ने गोतस्करी के शक में........

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