New Delhi: There is a new front that has opened in an old Delhi Hindu-Muslim neighbourhood. It is the pig. And tensions are simmering.
In Delhi’s Tri Nagar, some Hindu families appear to have embraced a new form of devotion and a way to deter Muslim neighbours — pigs. The animals are kept in cages at homes, while the walls display posters of a powerful, pig-faced deity adorned in jewellery, much like other gods.
“They are Varaha (boar), Vishnu’s third avatar. We have always worshipped them. They are our deity,” said a resident of Onkar Nagar B. Located in the northern part of Delhi, the neighbourhood is near areas such as Ashok Vihar and Shakurpur, and is a part of the Chandni Chowk constituency.
Some Muslim residents say the animals have been given names like “Abdul” and “Sultan,” and are called out when Muslim neighbours pass by.
Hindu families say the new practice goes back over a year, while Muslim residents insist it began only two to three months ago. In a locality where over 70 Muslim families live, that disagreement has hardened into a visible rift.
One video, now with over 3 million views on Instagram, shows a man saying, “Pigs will roam in every lane, and there will be a temple in every lane. Delhi will be purified. And all these people will leave,” as he smiles at the camera.
The clip has been widely shared on Instagram, with several users reposting it and urging others to keep pigs, framing it as a way to “protect Hindu dharma” and make the area “jihadi-mukt.”
In many videos shot in the neighbourhood, set to Vishnu aartis, pigs move inside their cages as families shower them with flowers, feed them milk, and perform rituals.
“They are used to living in dirt. We are raising them properly. We even decorate them with garlands during Diwali,” Prerna, a resident, told ThePrint.
With tensions simmering, CRPF personnel have now been stationed in the neighbourhood for over a week now. What was intended as devotion and love for the animal has turned into a sectarian crisis.
“They are trying to push us out of our own homes. We are very troubled — we are insulted again and again, called ‘jihadi’ and ‘Pakistani’ every day,” said Liyakat Ali, a resident of the area, adding that he is now considering leaving the locality for good.
Ali also alleges that, alongside verbal harassment, Hindu families brought in pigs just to deter Muslims from living in the area.
The blame games begin
As time went on another point of conflict arose, and the blame games began. Both Hindus and Muslims from the neighbourhood have posted videos and reels about their version of events.
The cages outside the houses now stand empty, but residents say it wasn’t always this way. In Gali No. 3 of Tri Nagar, Hindu families brought home five pigs in the months leading up to Diwali last year, keeping them in enclosures right outside their front doors.
One by one, the pigs started dying. Today, all five are dead, and their deaths became the latest trigger in an already tense neighbourhood.
Hindu residents allege that three of the pigs were deliberately poisoned by members of the Muslim community.
They claim the animals began showing alarming symptoms, their bodies turning blue, foam gathering at the animals’ mouth, the vets who examined these pigs, the resident Hindus say, claimed the animals were poisoned.
However, they have not been able to produce any medical reports or formal evidence to substantiate this claim.
Muslim neighbours are calling it a façade. In their own videos, they claim the animals are often left out in the sun and rain without proper care, and allege that when cameras arrive, the narrative is flipped and blame is directed at them for the deaths.
Abdul Bari, 27, a local footwear shop owner, who has been named by some residents as the mastermind behind the death of the pigs, says that CCTV footage from his home tells another story, one where the pigs were ill-treated by the same families who owned them.
In multiple clips, he claims, members of these households can be seen injecting the pigs with a substance before feeding them, after which the animals appear to react sharply, crying out. Videos that he shared with ThePrint.
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Neighbourhood tensions
For the past two months, Abdul Bari and Liyakat Ali have been making repeated trips to the local police station and filing complaints about what they describe as a growing pattern of harassment.
“We just want to live peacefully with our families,” says Ali, 36, who runs a hydraulic equipment and repair business. For him, the issue of pigs is only one part of a much larger conspiracy unfolding against the Muslims in the neighbourhood.
Ali, who has spent two decades in Tri Nagar and the last three years in Onkar Nagar B, says he has never felt this uncertain about staying on. New Muslim residents are harassed and extorted for money if we want to build our homes here, he added.
“Every Muslim who comes here is asked for money. You can call it extortion if they refuse; they are harassed in different ways,” Ali alleges.
Bari’s experience followed a similar arc. After buying a plot in 2023, in what he describes as a predominantly Hindu colony, he began constructing his house — only to be asked by the resident welfare association to pay Rs 1 lakh per floor or stop work altogether. When he refused, complaints were filed against him for illegal construction.
When that did not work, Bari claims, the pressure shifted. Rumours about him began circulating across the neighbourhood.
“They said I am in the leather business and that I get funding from Pakistan to spread communalism here,” he says, allegations he strongly denies.
According to Bari, the intimidation did not stop there. He claims that people entered his home without permission — something he says is captured in videos he has recorded. In other clips, he alleges that certain residents are seen throwing meat and garbage outside his house, only to later accuse him of creating unsanitary conditions.
Complaints and notices
Bari had first raised the issue of the domestication of pigs in the area as far back as September 2025. Records accessed by ThePrint show that the dispute had already reached civic authorities at the time.
A notice in response to Bari’s complaint was issued by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Veterinary Services Department in Keshav Puram zone on 3 September 2025. It names residents, including Ashwini and Sachin Kumar Sharma, General Secretary and Joint Secretary at B block Omkar Nagar, citing pigs straying in the locality as a “public health hazard,” and warning of seizure and legal action.
“The incident is old. People are giving interviews to the media on what has transpired 4-5 months back,” said a senior police official.
Despite the complaint to the MCD about the poor conditions of pigs, Bari is being held responsible for poisoning the pigs. However, there have been no official complaints on the killings of the pigs.
“My only fault is that I am Muslim,” Bari says quietly.
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A changing neighbourhood
Across from Ali’s shop, chants of “Jai Bajrangbali” begin to rise as the clock strikes 8 pm. Within minutes, the street fills as the aarti over loudspeakers from the Nyaydish Panchmukhi Hanuman Mandir that came up in January and is still partially under construction.
The CRPF personnel, who have now been on continuous duty at the spot for a week, only reduce in numbers after the prayer is over and the crowd thins. But small groups linger, discussing the day’s events and the videos now circulating online.
“The CRPF personnel are here as a preventive measure. On the ground, the situation appears normal,” said another police official posted in Keshav Puram, who spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Among those gathered is Sachin Kumar Sharma, a resident at Omkar Nagar’s Gali No 3, who sees the situation very differently. For him, what is unfolding is not about provocation, but what he calls a “demographic shift.”
Areas that were once predominantly Hindu, he claims, have slowly changed over time — Hindu families moving out, Muslims moving in, until the character of the neighbourhood shifts entirely.
“They come in large numbers. Slowly, they change the population of the area,” Sharma says, adding that he is determined not to let that happen here in Trinagar.
He says that Hindu families are not willingly selling their homes. Instead, he alleges, property dealers mislead sellers and quietly transfer ownership to Muslim buyers for higher commissions.
“No Hindu wants to spoil their environment. These properties are being taken through deceit,” he says.
He further alleges that buildings owned by Muslims house more people than permitted, and raises questions around identity, claiming most of these people would turn out to be immigrants from Bangladesh or Pakistan.
A home under threat
These concerns have also begun to reflect in how the neighbourhood is being physically reorganised.
To “protect” their community, residents of Gali No. 3 have installed a gate on one end, restricting the movement of those they describe as outsiders.
They allege that Muslim residents create disturbances, use abusive language, and record videos of homes without permission — claims that the other side denies.
“These changes are necessary. We won’t give up our lands, this time,” says an older woman who comes to the temple daily now.
The sense of security has begun to slip away among both Hindus and Muslims in this growing siege mindset.
“I don’t know how long this house will remain with me,” Ali wonders, standing at a distance and looking toward his house.
He says he does not want to leave; this is the home he has built over the years, the neighbourhood he chose to stay in. But the thought has begun to take shape, quietly. If things continue like this, he says, he may not have a choice.
“We do not want to go. We want to live together,” says Ali.
“I’ve been cut off — even people I once called friends, members of my own community, don’t believe me anymore,” he adds, as he closes his shop and walks back home.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)