Muslim man in Noida rapes and forces Hindu woman to convert to Islam

Case ID : 0b66caf | Location : Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 10 January, 2024

Case ID : 0b66caf

Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

10 January, 2024

Muslim man in Noida rapes and forces Hindu woman to convert to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Noida, a Dalit girl from Ghaziabad was raped and blackmailed to convert to Islam by a man named Zubair. The incident occurred on January 11 when Zubair offered the victim a ride to her office but took her to a hotel near Bahlolpur police station and assaulted her. He filmed the act and later threatened to release the video if she didn't convert. The victim's brother was also assaulted when he tried to delete the video. Frustrated by the ongoing harassment, the victim filed a complaint at Sector-63 police station. Zubair was arrested and charged under IPC sections 376 and 323.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The sub-category under Predatory Proselytisation relevant here is 'Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion'. 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 details of this case reveal that the Muslim perpetrator, to alienate the Hindu victim from his professed faith inflicted torture on her. She was raped and blackmailed with her private pictures, all because the perpetrator wanted her to renounce her faith and accept Islam. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the accused employed violence and intimidation to disenfranchise the victim from it, the case has been included in the hate tracker.