How a 2025 Hyderabad Murder Was Communalised On Social Media
A 2025 Hyderabad violence video has resurfaced on social media with false ‘love jihad’ claims. Reports confirm that both individuals involved were Hindus and the case was linked to a local criminal dispute.
Giving a communal angle to every other incident of violence has become the norm on social media today. Narratives such as ‘love jihad’ and the vilification of a particular community have become so normalized that they go viral in no time. In many cases, old incidents, unrelated visuals, and misleading captions are deliberately repackaged to provoke communal outrage and deepen social divisions online.
In the latest incident, an event from 2025 has been repurposed into a completely unrelated communal narratives across X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Usually, Hindutva accounts become the primary peddlers of fake and misleading narratives that accuse certain individuals of being ‘criminals’ because of their religion, often through claims related to ‘love jihad’.In this case, an altercation between two individuals and the subsequent killing of one by the other has been falsely portrayed as a case of ‘love jihad’, with claims that a ‘Muslim man was stabbed to death’ for being in a relationship with a Hindu woman.
However, we found these communal claims to be false and misleading.
What is the viral claim?
On May 14, an X user named Hamna Javed posted a video showing two men physically fighting, and one stabbing the other in the middle of a busy street. Another person is seen trying to pacify them. Text overlaid on the video reads: “A Muslim man was brutally stabbed to death. It happened in an open public place. Hindutva mobs carried out the attack. They suspected him of being in a relationship with a Hindu girl. The attackers call this love jihad”.
The caption accompanying the post states: “Brutally murdered in broad daylight by a Hindutva mob for loving a Hindu girl. They named it Love Jihad. We name it cold-blooded murder.” As of May 18, the video had garnered 602 views.
In the comment section, one user shared a screenshot appearing to be from ‘Voice PK’, accompanied by the comment: “Islamic jihadi killed a 3-year-old girl. These people are not human, they are animals.” The exchange demonstrates how such claims quickly fuel communal narratives online, with users responding to one form of communal misinformation by amplifying another.
Another account, Asia Decoded, shared the same video on May 14, with the same caption. The post has since been withheld in India. However, an archived version of the post shows that it had garnered 19,200 views as of May 14.
The comment section featured highly polarised reactions. One user wrote, “Modi is fully responsible for promoting such extremism. Modi is also an extremist”! Another user commented, “I have 0 sympathy for Indian Muslims and I don’t want my country to help them. They are literally 30 million and anyone can kill or rape them; they didn’t even speak about it. So cowards deserve this”. While some comments condemned the act and expressed concern over the condition of minorities in the country, others openly justified violence against Muslims, claiming that they ‘deserve’ such treatment.
The video was also shared by several other X and Facebook accounts, many of which have since been restricted or withheld.
Tracing the facts
We performed a reverse image search using key frames from the video, which led us to several news reports from November 2025. Most of them were Telugu news reports that featured screengrabs from the same video. These reports helped establish the actual context behind the incident.
According to two Telugu reports published by NT News and Vidhaatha on November 5, 2025, the accused was identified as Baleswar Reddy, while the victim was Roshan Kumar Singh. The reports stated that the attack allegedly took place following a financial dispute between the two men.
According to both reports, the accused and the victim were identified as individuals with prior criminal records and were described as habitual offenders.
A keyword search using ‘Hyderabad attack’ and the names of the individuals led to a report published by The Hindu on November 5, 2025.
According to the report, the incident took place at the Jagadgirigutta bus stop in Hyderabad. Mr. Reddy, the alleged attacker, along with his associates Mohammad and Adi, reportedly assaulted Roshan with a sharp weapon before fleeing the scene.
Police initially registered a case of attempt to murder, as Roshan was critically injured. However, he later succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at Gandhi Hospital, after which the case was reclassified as murder.
The report also quoted Balanagar ACP P. Naresh Reddy, who stated that the two men had been at odds over control of prostitution networks operating in the locality, and that a dispute over local dominance had been brewing for some time.
Jagadgirigutta SHO B. Venkatesham confirmed to India Today that both Reddy and Roshan were Hindus. He further stated that there was no communal angle to the incident.
The earlier reports suggest that the incident has been deliberately communalised in an attempt to deepen existing divides. Manufacturing false narratives of ‘love jihad’ to target or victimise a community only deepens communal tensions, as seen in this case. Everyday incidents with no communal angle are often reframed and circulated to spread such hate narratives. It is important to remain alert to such misinformation, regardless of which side of communal polarisation it originates from.
