Muslim man rapes Hindu model by putting a butcher's knife to her son's throat, blackmails her with obscene pictures to convert to Islam
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
15 May, 2024
Case Summary
A 30-year-old married Hindu model was sexually assaulted in Indore by her husband's friend, Kashan Sheikh, son of Irfan Sheikh. In October 2023, she was asked to meet at a house located in Pushpa Nagar for a modelling assignment. When she reached there with her 2-year-old son, Kashan held a butcher's knife to the child's throat and said, “I have sacrificed many goats. I can also slit your son’s throat with this knife." He then raped her, capturing videos and photos from his mobile. He then threatened to make them viral online and also kill her son if she revealed this to anyone. After this, he regularly sexually violated and blackmailed her. He repeatedly forced her to leave her husband and convert to Islam, demanding payments by threatening to share her images and videos on social media. Kishan also had pictures of other girls on his phone. Eventually, the victim broke down in front of her spouse and recounted the entire ordeal. The couple took the help of Hindu leader and activist Man Singh Rajawat to register an official complaint against the accused. The matter is now under investigation.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats in this case find their root on discriminatory grounds which have the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion and forceful circumcision. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment in an attempt to make the Hindu victim abandon his/her professed religion and adopt the religion of the perpetrator. In this sub-category, we would include cases where the non-Hindu perpetrator harassed, threatened or coerced the victim to convert, however, the Hindu victim did not convert to another faith. Cases where the victim was converted owing to the harassment and threats would be documented in another sub-category. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. In this case, the perpetrator exploited the victim's familiarity with him to pressure her to convert to Islam, by deploying threats and violence. As per the victim's testimony, he raped and blackmailed her and threatened her with harm to her family if she did not convert to Islam. Due to the fear of harm that might come to the family, she could not do much. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu woman. Further, the central aim of the perpetrator was to disenfranchise the Hindu woman from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
