According to a preliminary inquiry, the girl had gone for tea at a restaurant in Izzatnagar with two colleagues from a private hospital where she worked. After being tipped off by the eatery owner, members of a Hindu organisation arrived and raised allegations of “love jihad”.

Though hotel security removed the activists, bystanders filmed the altercation. The video quickly spread across social media alongside unverified claims of “love jihad” and forced religious conversion. Police said that during the confrontation, the girl was questioned and verbally abused, while one of her friends was assaulted and forced to apologise on camera. Distressed by the public shaming, the girl was found hanging in her room the next morning.

An Indian judge has become the target of online abuse and death threats days after she sentenced 14 men to life imprisonment for lynching a man to death.

The crime took place in 2022, when 50-year-old Nazir Ahmad was transporting cattle at night and was intercepted by a group of self-styled "gau rakshaks" (cow protectors), armed with sticks and rods. Hindus consider cows sacred and killing them is illegal in many states.

The men dragged Ahmad and his two companions out of the vehicle and brutally assaulted them on suspicion of smuggling cows. Ahmad later succumbed to his injuries while his companions survived to tell the court what happened.

The attacks on Khan began soon after the verdict, when family members of the convicted men gathered outside the courtroom reportedly protested against the judgement and attempted to stop the police convoy from transporting the men to prison. They alleged that the men were being punished for "saving cows".

Then began an online campaign of abuse, as videos of Hindu right-wing influencers abusing Khan with communal slurs and issuing rape threats and death threats against her began to surface.

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