Young Muslim men who were passing out food to the poor were assaulted with cricket bats. Other Muslims have been beaten up, nearly lynched, run out of their neighborhoods or attacked in mosques, branded as virus spreaders. In Punjab State, loudspeakers at Sikh temples broadcast messages telling people not to buy milk from Muslim dairy farmers because it was said to be infected with the coronavirus.

A spree of anti-Muslim attacks has broken out across India after the country’s health ministry repeatedly blamed an Islamic seminary for spreading the coronavirus and officials spoke of “human bombs” and “corona jihad.”

Hateful messages have bloomed online. And a wave of apparently fake videos has popped up telling Muslims not to wear masks, not to practice social distancing and not to worry about the virus at all, as if the makers of the videos wanted Muslims to get sick.

In a pandemic, there is always the hunt for blame. President Trump has done it, on numerous occasions calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus.’’ All over the world people are pointing fingers, driven by their fears and anxieties to go after The Other.

In India, no other group has been demonized more than the country’s 200 million Muslims, minorities in a Hindu-dominated land of 1.3 billion people.

To curb the spread of the coronavirus, India imposed a nationwide 21-day lockdown, and officials indicated this weekend that it will be extended.

A statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office said the chief ministers of India’s states had reached a consensus to extend the lockdown for two weeks when it ends on April 15. The statement did not make clear Mr. Modi’s final decision, but some states have already extended the restrictions to the end of the month.