Bus driver Wasim pretends to be Sonu to entrap a Hindu girl, spikes her drink and rapes her, blackmails her to convert to Islam with obscene videos
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
11 June, 2024
Case Summary
In Madhya Pradesh's Indore, a bus driver named Wasim Khan introduced himself as Sonu to develop a friendship with a Hindu girl who works at a Pharmaceutical company. After trapping the victim in a relationship, he spiked her drink. When the victim became unconscious, the accused raped and recorded her obscene videos. He used them as blackmail, threatening that he would leak the videos if she did not convert to Islam. The victim from Umaria works at a pharma company in Rau. She frequently travelled by bus between Indore and Mahu, where she met the driver Wasim, who introduced himself as Sonu. They exchanged phone numbers and started communicating regularly. One day, Sonu invited her to meet a friend and took her to the Medicaps area. There, he fed her and offered tea, after which she began to lose consciousness. Wasim then raped her multiple times and recorded videos of the act. When the victim saw his real identity on his Aadhar card, Wasim threatened to make the explicit videos viral. He further threatened to kill her and her family if she refused to convert to Islam and marry him. The victim started keeping a distance from him. On June 12 however, when the victim was in Vishwakarma Temple, Rao Bazaar, Wasim tried to forcibly take her with him and assaulted her when she resisted. The victim sought help from Bajrang Dal and filed a Police complaint. The Police registered a case and took Wasim into custody.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
Three distinct elements in this particular case demonstrate that the Muslim perpetrator committed the crime while harbouring a bias against the Hindu faith. The first factor is that the accused pretended to be a Hindu to deceive her. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. The second factor is that the Muslim perpetrator blackmailed her with her private pictures to convert to Islam. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Thirdly, the accused assaulted the victim when she refused to accede to his demands. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force 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 pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The victim in the case was a Hindu. The Muslim man specifically targeted the woman based on her religion as evidenced by the fact that he pretended to be a Hindu to develop friendship with her. Thereafter, the religious motive of the crime becomes more apparent when he forces the victim to convert to Islam and assaults her when she refuses. Such actions are not random but are directed specifically at individuals because of their religious affiliation. This targeted violence is a direct expression of hate and intolerance towards the victim's religion, hence this case has been classified as a religious 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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
