Muslim man and his family abduct Hindu girl in Bihar after luring her to temple at the pretext of marriage, force her to convert to Islam and marry him
Supaul, Bihar, India 
9 May, 2024
Case Summary
A Hindu girl was abducted by Mohammad Nizamuddin and his family members to force her into marriage and push her to embrace Islam in Supaul, Bihar on May 10. On May 14, police took the father, Mohammad Salauddin into custody in connection with the disappearance of Shruti Raj, also known as Khushi, a 22-year-old woman from ward number 5 of Mangal Bazar, under the Triveniganj police station. Her mother, Sita Devi, filed an FIR stating that Shruti was deceived by Nizamuddin, also known as Gulab, and lured to the Champawati temple under the pretext of marriage. Upon arrival, she was kidnapped. She accused Nizamuddin's family, including his father Md Salauddin, mother Shahjahan, brothers Waseem Akram, Md Azharuddin, Md Ziauddin, and sister Fehmida Nasreen, of conspiring to force Shruti into marriage and conversion to Islam. Triveniganj police station in-charge Ramsevak Rawat confirmed that Md Salauddin was arrested and sent to judicial custody, while efforts are underway to apprehend six other absconding perpetrators.
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 has 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, forceful circumcision etc. 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 to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted 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. This case is a distinct case of religiously motivated hate crime as the Hindu victim was forced to give up her professed faith and accept Islam. Details of the case suggest that the accused specifically singled out and targeted a Hindu woman, which itself stems from the animosity against the Hindu faith. Another category that this has been added to is 'hate crimes against women in relationship and sexual crimes' in the tertiary category 'forced conversion before marriage'. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. The relationship in such cases is mostly consensual and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. In such cases, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. In this case, the woman was lured to the temple on the pretext of marriage and thereafter, was abducted and forced to do nikah. It is, therefore, evident that the victim was lured, misled and harassed, specifically targeted for the purpose of forced conversion and owing to her religious identity.
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
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 5 to 10
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
