Muslim youth traps Hindu minor girl, then brainwashes her to convert to Islam, threatens to kill her when victim's father protests
Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, India 
24 March, 2023
Case Summary
In the Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, one Mohammad Irshad was accused of rape, harassment and forced conversion. The father of a minor Hindu girl alleged that Irshad trapped his daughter and established a sexual relationship with her. He then gradually brainwashed the victim to adopt Islam and converted her from Hindu to Muslim. Under the influence of Irshad, his minor daughter started offering Namaz. She also started keeping the Quran with her. The accused also pressured the girl to marry him. When the victim's father tried to intervene, Irshad threatened to kill him and kidnap his daughter.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
What makes this case worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the family members of a minor Hindu girl, who is the victim in this case, accused a Muslim man of targeting their minor daughter and brainwashing her to convert to Islam. She was groomed to the extent that she started following several Islamic practices like offering Namaz. The accused also convinced the Hindu minor to perform nikah with him, pointing towards a crime with his motivations being driven by religious hate. 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 incidents 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. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered 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 1
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
