Muslim man stalks, threatens minor Hindu girl to do Nikah or he will shoot her dead

Case ID : 2e4e7c7 | Location : Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 9 March, 2023

Case ID : 2e4e7c7

Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India

9 March, 2023

Muslim man stalks, threatens minor Hindu girl to do Nikah or he will shoot her dead

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

A case of a Hindu girl being threatened by a Muslim youth to marry him emerged in the Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh. It is alleged that a youth named Mohammad Saqlain used to do obscene acts with a girl student studying in class 9th in Kashiram Colony of the Chhibramau police station area. When she refused, Saqlain and his family members assaulted her, hurled acid at her, and threatened to kill her. The victim has lodged a complaint against the accused Saqlain. Additionally, a letter has also been written to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The victim, a class 9 student, said in her complaint that a man named Saqlain regularly followed her on her way to school and pressured her to marry him. She also stated that Saqlain threatened to kill her if she refused to do Nikah with him. After the victim told her mother about the incident, the mother went to the house of the accused and voiced her complaints to the accused’s family. Even after this, Saqlain persisted in his threats to shoot the victim dead.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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 have 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 and forceful circumcision. 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 in an attempt to make the Hindu victim abandon his/her professed religion and adopt the religion of the perpetrator. In this sub-category, we would include cases where the non-Hindu perpetrator harassed, threatened or coerced the victim to convert, however, the Hindu victim did not convert to another faith. Cases where the victim was converted owing to the harassment and threats 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. In this case, the minor Hindu victim was being stalked which is a crime ab initio. Further, the religious motivation of the perpetrator is evident from the fact that he was pressuring the minor Hindu victim to do Nikah with him. The prerequisite to Nikah is conversion to Islam as per Islamic doctrine. Since the motivation of the perpetrator was driven specifically to do 'Nikah' with a minor Hindu victim which would involve religious conversion, this case has been categorised as a hate crime.