Hindus forcefully circumcised in Maharashtra, Muslim youths get monetary reward to marry and convert Hindu girls to Islam

Case ID : 2d5298f | Location : Daund, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 30 November, 2023

Case ID : 2d5298f

Daund, Maharashtra, India

30 November, 2023

Hindus forcefully circumcised in Maharashtra, Muslim youths get monetary reward to marry and convert Hindu girls to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

On Thursday, 12th January 2023, a conversion racket was busted in Daund in Maharashtra. It was revealed that as many as 200 Hindu women are converted every year in the town. Hindu households in Daund said that they are forced to live in insecurity and that Muslim youths are paid Rs 5 lakhs to convert Hindu girls. The Hindu husbands of Muslim women are also forcibly circumcised by local Muslims. Hindu men are allegedly lured into honey traps in order to convert them. In the region, over 100 men are forced to get circumcised every year. A resident revealed that 17-18-year-old Hindu girls were lured into conversion with fake promises of marriage. "They talk about marriage, and after these girls give birth to their children, they are divorced and abandoned. Then they get ready to marry again,” a Hindu villager revealed the modus operandi of the Muslim accused. Farooq Qureshi, Kumel Qureshi, Ashib Qureshi, and Farhaan Qureshi were said to be behind the racket. Kamel Qureshi alias Haji Saheb was arrested. He was considered to be the mastermind of these forceful conversions taking place in Daund of Maharashtra.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under two subcategories under Predatory Proselytisation because of the various distinct components that demonstrate the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and their deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. Because of the case's specifics, we have put this case under the prime category: Predatory Proselytization and to narrow down the search further we have chosen the subcategory 'harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' under this core category in addition to conversion by inducement. 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. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. 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 sub-category under 'Predatory Proselytisation' relevant in this case is conversion by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. In this specific case, elements of both these subcategories were observed. First of all, the information provided makes it clear that the accused attempted to capitalize on the young Hindu females by proposing marriage to them. When this happens, the parents frequently accept the proposal because, in the first place, they are tempted not to spend too much money and, since they typically have a large family, they want to swiftly absolve themselves of their duties. In addition, the Muslim accused intimidated the Hindu men in the hamlet by forcing them to undergo forcible circumcision. Though circumcision is not a prerequisite to converting to Islam, however, it is often seen that it is used as an intimidatory tactic to make the Hindu victim abandon his/her professed religion and adopt the religion of the perpetrator. This sort of harassment is rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and is therefore documented as a religiously motivated hate crime in this Hindu hate tracker.