Hindu girl in a relationship with a Muslim man gets threatened, marriage registered by man in stealth, forced to convert after marriage
Bardoli, Gujarat, India 
21 April, 2023
Case Summary
A Hindu girl from Bardoli, Gujarat, accused her Muslim husband Shoaib Ibrahim Rawat of torturing her mentally and physically while forcing her to convert to Islam. The Hindu girl was in love with Shoaib while in college. Shoaib then threatened and harassed her to marry him. In 2019, Shoaib took the girl to Surat and registered a marriage there without letting the girl know. After marriage, the girl was unhappy since Shoaib regularly threatened and harassed her to convert to Islam. The girl was an orphan and used to live with relatives before the forced marriage.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman and the force/pressure to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, the marriage is consensual in most cases and often, there is no element of the man hiding his religious identity. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert to Islam after marriage. In such cases, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including, denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, forced to read the Kalma, forced to wear a hijab, forced for Halala, etc. There are several instances where after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database.
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 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
