Minor Hindu girl lured and kidnapped by Muslim man posing as Hindu, accused wore Kalava and Tilak to deceive victim
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India 
29 July, 2024
Case Summary
In Agra district, Uttar Pradesh, a case of love jihad surfaced when a Muslim man, identified as Mushtaq, kidnapped a 14-year-old Hindu girl after befriending her under a false identity. On 30th July 2024, the girl's father reported to the Sadar Police Station that his daughter, a class 8 student, had gone to school but never returned. Mushtaq, who had posed as a Hindu named Raju, used to apply a tilak on his forehead and tie a sacred thread (Kalava) on his hand to deceive the girl and her family. Per reports, Mushtaq had created an Instagram ID with the name of Raju to lure the minor girl. Mushtaq lured the minor girl while she was on her way to school and took her away. The father demanded strict action against the accused. In response, the Agra police registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nayay Sanhita (BNS) and formed multiple teams to search for Mushtaq and recover the victim. Hindu organizations staged protests, demanding the swift recovery of the girl.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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. In this case, apart from the Muslim man pretending to be a Hindu to lure the Hindu victim, there is also an element of grooming since the victim was a 14-year-old girl - a minor. 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 incident 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. In this case, the minor was lured into acquaintance by a Muslim man pretending to be Hindu. The perpetrator did so by approaching the minor over Instagram. It is clear that the perpetrator established a relationship with the minor by grooming her into accepting his inappropriate advances. Since the perpetrator changed his identity and pretended to be a Hindu, the religious motivation of the crime is also apparent - proving the fact that the underlying motivation of the crime was targeting the minor based on her religious identity. This case is therefore being categorised as a religiously motivated 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 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
