New Delhi: Amnesty International India on Thursday launched an interactive data website 'Halt the Hate in order to draw attention to alarming number of alleged hate crimes against marginalised groups in the country.

The website documents hate crimes against Dalits, Adivasis, members of racial or religious minority groups, transgender persons, and other marginalised people which are reported in mainstream English and Hindi media, the rights group said in a release

The first step to ensuring justice and ending impunity for hate crimes - where people are targeted because of their membership of a particular group - is to highlight their occurrence, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India.

"Our website aims to draw attention to some of these crimes by tracking and documenting them. Many of these incidents are deeply disturbing: Dalits have been attacked for merely sporting moustaches, and Muslims lynched for transporting cattle. Dalit women have been branded as witches, and raped and killed.

"Unfortunately, the extent of hate crime in India is unknown because the law - with some exceptions - does not recognise hate crimes as specific offences. The police need to take steps to unmask any potentially discriminatory motive in a crime, and political leaders must be more vocal in denouncing such violence," he said, as per the release.

The website documents alleged hate crimes from September 2015, when Mohammad Akhlaq was killed in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly killing a cow.

Cow-related violence and so-called ‘honour' killings were among the common instances of alleged hate crimes, it added.

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Agra, Dec 23: A truck driver dragged two people for about 300 metres in Agra under his vehicle, police on Monday said.

Some locals forced the driver to stop the truck and extricated the men from under the vehicle.

Police arrested the driver and seized the truck.

The two men, both residents of Nunhai in Agra, were going towards Rambagh from Waterworks when they met with an accident around 11 pm Sunday.

The driver, instead of stopping the truck sped up, trapping both of them underneath, police said.

"In the accident, two youths were dragged by a canter driver for about 300 metres. Later, some residents saved the youths by stopping the driver using force," Chhatta Police Station Inspector Pramod Kumar told PTI.

"The youths were sent for treatment at a nearby hospital and are still being treated, but are in stable condition. The youths were from Agra. The canter driver was arrested and the canter seized after the incident," he said.

A video of the incident that surfaced on social media showed the men shouting for help.

The video was purported to have been shot by a person passing by on a two-wheeler.