Shahjahanpur: Nineteen-year-old S and 21-year-old Vishal were on a date in the city, 40 km away from their hometown. Over plates of hot noodles at Pizza 99, a restaurant at Bareilly Morh in Shahjahanpur, S spoke about her plans to appear for the physical test of the SSC examination in February.
Their afternoon outing turned into a nightmare when a group of 8-10 men, allegedly linked to a Hindutva group, barged into the restaurant and began questioning them about their religion, suspecting that the couple might be Hindu and Muslim. When S and Vishal said they were Hindus, the men demanded to know their caste. They switched on their phone cameras and threatened to upload their faces on social media. Some in the group insisted they show identity cards, while others began assaulting them. With nowhere to escape, S jumped from a second-floor window. Vishal jumped after her.
The incident occurred on 24 January at around 3:30 pm. Today, the two lie on adjoining hospital beds—Vishal with an injured back, and S with a fractured leg. He belongs to the Scheduled Caste community; she is a Brahmin.
“We never talked about each other’s caste as much as we have in the last 24 hours,” S said. “Everyone is talking about our caste. The mob asked us, the media asks us, even patients around us discuss our caste instead of medicines.”
This isn’t the first such incident in either Uttar Pradesh or Shahjahanpur district. Across the state, the ever-mushrooming, self-styled Hindu vigilante groups have created an environment of fear among young people. Students are stopped outside universities and couples are questioned in parks and restaurants. Their social interactions often take place under the threat of surveillance, filming and public shaming, as they try to avoid the preying eyes of the moral police.
Police said an FIR has been registered against eight people, two of whom have been arrested.
“This is the first incident of its kind [reported to us], and a thorough investigation is underway,” Shahjahanpur Superintendent of Police Rajesh Dwivedi said.
While the police have promised that the remaining accused would be arrested soon, S does not have much hope.
“I know how the system works—everything will go back to normal unless another such incident comes to light,” she said.
A hospital full of whispers
The usually quiet corridors of Singh Nursing Home in Shahjahanpur—once filled with hurried relatives and patients moving from one ward to another with prescriptions and medical reports—now echo with conversations about a young couple, caste, class and religion. At the small chai stall inside the hospital compound, one is more likely to hear a discussion around two names.
“The girl is only nineteen. How can she go out with a boy?” goes the whisper. “The police must be involved, that’s why the restaurant was running. Nothing new, things like this happen every day. The criminals will roam free in a few days.”
Caught in this judgment loop are S and Vishal, who were once planning their future and are now preoccupied with what people might be saying about them.
“People in a hospital should be talking about their lives and medicines,” S said. “But every whisper carries my name. I have become part of gossip and lost my dream of clearing the SSC exam.”
Soon after a video of the assault, recorded by the men inside the restaurant, went viral, S’s family cut off contact with her.
“I have lost my family because of some so-called saviours of culture and dharma,” she said, noting that her father is a heart patient and is now at risk after this incident.
“I believed we are all Hindus and that Sanatan is our dharma. But Hindus attacking Hindus over caste is what cost me my future in a democratic country,” she added.
Hindu, caste, and an uncertain future
Lying on her hospital bed, S often looks at her injured leg, which she cannot move. She needs help even to go to the washroom. Vishal, on the bed beside her, holds a hot-water bag, moving it between his back and chest to ease the pain.
“Who will pay my medical bills, and who will answer for the dream I lost in all this?” S asked quietly, looking at the window before checking on Vishal.
Vishal declined yet another call from a reporter asking for a comment.
While his mother visits him twice a day, S’s family has refused to speak to her or to the media. She is worried not just about her career, but about where she will go once she is discharged.
“If things turn out differently with Vishal tomorrow, who will marry me with an injured leg?” she asked. “I don’t even know when I’ll be able to walk properly again, or how I’ll take up any job.”
Vishal said his family had known about their relationship and never questioned them. “But outsiders attacked us without knowing anything about us,” he said.
Despite everything, the two say they now intend to accept their relationship publicly and have promised to marry each other, no matter what lies ahead.
The restaurant and the talk
Thirty-year-old Son Pal runs a general store next to the Bank of India building, the second floor of which housed the restaurant—without any signboard or nameplate. It was a regular afternoon when shouts and screams drew a crowd. Soon, an ambulance arrived, followed by police vehicles.
The open space in front of Pal’s shop has since become a gathering point for curious residents, media personnel, and police visits.
Pal and vegetable vendors nearby said the restaurant was frequented mostly by couples and rooms were booked on an hourly basis.
“This was not the first time such groups entered the restaurant and harassed people,” Pal said. “They targeted couples because they knew what kind of place it was.”
Amar Kumar, a 45-year-old resident, alleged police inaction.
“Even the police knew what was happening inside. Now it will close for some time and reopen once things die down,” Kumar said.
Senior officials at Kant Police Station denied receiving any complaints against the restaurant.
Moral policing, normalised
The Shahjahanpur attack is part of a growing pattern. Moral policing is now common across public and private spaces, with rarely any police action against the accused despite video evidence.
In February 2025, videos circulated showing men claiming to be Bajrang Dal members confronting and harassing couples in parks. In October, another video from Katihar district in Bihar showed police officials questioning a brother and sister inside a restaurant. Another clip showed a woman police inspector interrogating young people in a park, forcing them to call their parents and reprimanding them for being outside without adult supervision.
In December, a mob of around 25 Hindu men identifying themselves as members of Bajrang Dal stormed a private birthday party at a cafe in Bareilly. In videos from the scene widely circulated on social media, they could be seen assaulting the group, after objecting to the presence of two Muslim students while shouting “love jihad”. Police filed an FIR after widespread outrage on social media.
Earlier this month, an interfaith couple’s walima (reception) in Shahjahanpur was disrupted after local Hindu groups protested, alleging religious conversion. The family eventually cancelled the event after tensions escalated.
“These so-called saviours of dharma and culture are emerging in large numbers, and crime in society is increasing. Nobody knows where they come from or where they go,” said Krishna Raj, former Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. “Who are they protecting, and from whom?”
Rajesh Awasthi, a Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) member who disrupted the reception, claimed the group acted on a complaint and denied any link to the assault on S and Vishal.
“We never go somewhere to harass people. If we receive information regarding conversion, we report it to the police and visit the spot with them,” Awasthi said.
Young and helpless
Inside Singh Nursing Home, Vishal worries about survival as much as justice. He once ran a fruit shop but has spent most of his savings on his and S’s treatment.
“I have spent more than Rs 70,000 on medical expenses. We didn’t get any help from the government,” Vishal said.
As the couple speaks to visitors, the gazes of patients, attendants and even hospital staff linger. Outside, gossip at tea stalls focussed not on the violence they survived but on S’s character.
“No decent girl would have gone to such a place with a boy,” someone says as others nod. Others whisper how she has brought shame to her family, “which is why nobody came to visit her.”
“My life will never be the same,” S said. “People will always judge me. Even if I go to a temple, people will look at me with questioning eyes and wonder which boy I might be meeting next.”
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)