Arif of Bareilly traps Hindu girl of Bihar, rapes and converts her, performs Nikah; his brother Talib also rapes and threatens her with death
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
3 June, 2024
Case Summary
A Hindu girl from Bihar accused Mohammad Arif of luring her into a relationship and then forcing her to convert to Islam. Arif’s brother, Mohammad Talib, also raped the woman and brutally assaulted her when she objected. In her police complaint, the victim, a resident of Bihar's Nawada, stated that she used to work in Delhi where she met Mohammad Arif, a resident of Bareilly. After some time, Arif lured and brought the woman to his residence in Bareilly’s Baheri. He raped her multiple times and pressured her to convert to Islam. Arif eventually converted her to Islam and performed Nikah with her, renaming the Hindu girl as Sana. The victim further stated that she was alone at home when Arif’s brother Mohammad Talib entered the victim’s room at 2 AM and started making obscene gestures at her. He raped the girl even though she protested and threatened her with death. When the victim revealed this to Arif the following day, he supported his brother and blamed Sana. Following this, Arif, his brother Talib, and his father Sabir Islam severely assaulted the victim. They all slandered the woman and threatened to burn her to death. Hindu organisations urged the administration to take strict action against the offenders
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The distinct element in this particular case that demonstrates that the Muslim perpetrator committed the crime while harbouring a bias against the Hindu faith is that he forced her to convert to Islam and perform Nikah with him. He also gave the Hindu girl a Muslim name against her will. 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. Additionally, the victim was put through unfathomable physical torture by the perpetrator and his family when she refused to convert to Islam. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. As the case may be, in such cases, the non-Hindu man forces himself sexually on the Hindu woman when she refuses his advances and pressures to convert her religion. The rape of the woman is often seen as either a punishment for the woman refusing to convert. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The purpose behind the violence employed was to coerce the victim to abandon her faith and accept Islam. The underlying motivation of the crime itself was hatred towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu girl. Further, the central aim of the perpetrators was to disenfranchise the Hindu girl 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 filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
