London Assembly urges Met to encourage Hindus to report hate crimes

THE London Assembly has called on the Metropolitan Police to work with local Hindu communities to encourage them to report hate crimes targeting them.

Hindus are the second most likely group to have been victims of religiously motivated hate crime, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

However, the London Assembly expressed its concern that hate crimes targeting Hindus were not being effectively recorded by police services.

The elected body also urged the Met to include the breakdown of hate crimes by religion on its crime dashboard.

Assembly member Krupesh Hirani, who proposed the motion, said: “Hinduphobia has absolutely no place in London and beyond. Sadly there has been a worrying rise in hate crimes faced by our community over the past year.

“Given that Hindus are the second most likely group to face religiously motivated hate crime, but that this isn’t seen in police data, shows that the police must, first, record this better and, secondly, respond to it better.”

The Labour group member for Brent and Harrow said he was “pleased that the London Assembly supports holding the Metropolitan Police to account so that they build the confidence held in them by our community.”

The motion referred to Home Office data which showed that there were 291 hate crimes against Hindus in 2022/2023, accounting for three per cent of such offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. This was an increase over the previous year which had seen 161 recorded hate crimes.

The figures also showed that the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police by month has increased since 2015.

“There are no public statistics on the number of religiously motivated hate crime by religion on the Metropolitan Police Service Crime Dashboard”, the motion said.

“This Assembly further notes that despite having the second lowest figure of recorded hate crimes, in 2022, Hindus formed the second most likely religion to have been victims of religiously motivated hate crime according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. This suggests that Hindu hate crime is not being effectively recorded by police services.”