Hindu youth threatened, drugged and forcibly converted by a group of Muslim men
Tando Allahyar, Sindh, Pakistan 
27 May, 2025
Case Summary
In Tando Allahyar, Sindh, a Hindu youth named Lachhman Das was threatened, drugged and forcibly converted to Islam by a group of Muslim men. This incident occurred when Lachhman was working at a jewellery shop owned by Raheel Chhipa. He stated that Raheel Chhipa, along with Waqas Chhipa, Haroon Chhipa, and Jibran Chhipa, threatened and coerced him into renouncing his Hindu faith. They threatened him and drugged him, and took him to a madarsa where he was converted to Islam. Furthermore, when Lachhman tried to go back to his Hindu faith and expressed interest in living with his parents, he was further threatened by Islamists if he decided to go back to his Hindu faith. This incident is yet another stark reminder of the oppression and atrocities Hindu minorities face in Pakistan, marked by systemic discrimination, violence, and forced conversions. Hindus, particularly women and young girls, are often abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to Muslim men with little to no legal recourse. Temples are frequently vandalised or destroyed, and Hindu communities are subjected to social and economic marginalisation. Blasphemy laws are disproportionately used against Hindus, leading to false accusations and severe punishments. Many Hindu families are forced to flee their homes due to religious intolerance, living in constant fear of attacks. This sustained persecution highlights the dire conditions for Hindus in Pakistan, where their religious identity makes them targets of oppression.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Predatory proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected 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 has 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, forceful circumcision etc. 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 to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. 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 second category selected here is- Attack not resulting in death, and within this, the sub-category selected is- Attacked for refusal to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, the victim refuses to succumb to the pressure/threats. Once the victim refuses, the perpetrator proceeds to attack/assault the victim owing to his/her refusal to convert. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The violence then is another hate crime driven by the victim’s refusal to abandon his professed faith, Hinduism, and convert to the religion of a non-Hindu perpetrator. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing violence towards the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu youth was forcibly converted to Islam. The details of this case reveal that the Muslim perpetrator, to alienate the Hindu victim from his professed faith, inflicted torture on him. He was threatened and drugged and in a semi-conscious state, taken to a madarsa where he was converted. 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 under the sub-category 'harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' within the core category of 'predatory proselytisation'. This whole act proves that the conversion did not happen through a genuine change of heart, but it was under threats and duress. Furthermore, when the victim expressed his desire to return to his Hindu faith, thereby resisting forced conversion, and live with his parents, he and his family were threatened with violence. This shows the extent the Islamists are willing to go just to convert Hindus and keep them in Islamic purview. This incident is emblematic of a longstanding and deeply entrenched pattern of persecution faced by Hindu minorities in Pakistan. This incident, involving the coercive conversion of a Hindu youth by Islamist perpetrators, mirrors the widespread and well-documented practices of targeted violence, abductions, and forced conversions that have afflicted the Hindu community across various regions of the country. Reports and human rights documentation consistently highlight how Hindus are especially vulnerable to such attacks, often with little to no intervention from authorities, and how these crimes are frequently facilitated or ignored by local institutions, including the police.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- 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
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
