Ajmal kidnaps Hindu woman and her minor children in Kushinagar, forces religious conversion

Case ID : 2e1d5a6 | Location : Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 3 October, 2024

Case ID : 2e1d5a6

Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India

3 October, 2024

Ajmal kidnaps Hindu woman and her minor children in Kushinagar, forces religious conversion

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

Padrauna Kotwali Police in Kushinagar arrested a man named Ajmal for kidnapping a Hindu woman and her two children and forcing them to convert. The woman’s husband had filed a written complaint on October 4, 2024, stating that Ajmal had abducted his wife and their two children, aged 7 and 8. Following the complaint, the Superintendent of Police (SP) formed a team led by ASP Ritesh Kumar Singh to locate them. The investigation revealed that Ajmal, from Babhanauli village in Deoria district, had kidnapped the family and forced a religious conversion. On October 10, police successfully rescued the woman and her children and arrested Ajmal.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the subcategory: 'Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because of the various distinct components that demonstrate the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and the deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. 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. This case exemplifies a religiously motivated hate crime, as it involves the use of harassment, threats, and coercion to force a religious conversion. The accused, Ajmal, abducted a Hindu woman and her children with the intent of imposing a religious change, a clear act of predatory proselytization. This tactic of forced conversion demonstrates the exploitation of individuals’ religious identities and autonomy through intimidation and manipulation, further reinforcing the crime's religiously motivated nature.