Firoz Mansuri kidnaps minor Hindu girl and keeps her in captivity, planned to convert her and get married

Case ID : 0b66bdc | Location : Kosi Zone, Nepal | Date of Incident : Tue, 14 May, 2024

Case ID : 0b66bdc

Kosi Zone, Nepal

14 May, 2024

Firoz Mansuri kidnaps minor Hindu girl and keeps her in captivity, planned to convert her and get married

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

In Jhapa district, Nepal, a case surfaced involving the kidnapping of a minor Hindu girl by Firoz Mansuri. The girl's family filed a complaint on March 24, 2024, naming Firoz and six others, including Ohid, Majudin Khatun, Sakina Khatun, and Alam. Despite the complaint, the Nepal police have not yet located the victim. The girl's mother informed that Firoz is hiding with the victim in India and has been pressuring the family to withdraw the case. According to the complaint, the kidnapping occurred on March 15, 2024, with Firoz and his family members involved. Firoz's aunt stated they will keep the girl until she becomes an adult, then convert her to Islam and marry her. The victim's family refused to withdraw the case, fearing for their daughter's safety. The mother reported receiving a distressed call from her daughter via the IMO app, where she revealed that Firoz had sold her jewellery and urged her family not to search for her. The victim had met Firoz while he was selling baskets in villages, leading to their communication on social media. Rajesh Yadav, National President of Hindu Samrat Sena, demanded strict action from the Nepal authorities against the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because there is a distinct component in this case, which essentially involves harassment and threat intending to convert the minor Hindu girl to Islam. 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. The other category under which this case is being added is 'Hate crimes against women in relationship and sexual crimes' and the secondary category is grooming. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime. This particular case involves the grooming of a minor since the perpetrators are converting a minor, who has no agency to consent to either a relationship, sexual intercourse or conversion of faith.