Hindu student blackmailed with secretly recorded video calls by Muslim youth Arshad who coerces her into meeting and pressures her to convert to Islam and marry through nikah
Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, India 
25 January, 2026
Case Summary
A Hindu woman pursuing a Bachelor of Science first-semester degree from the Civil Lines police station area of Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, was blackmailed, coerced, threatened with conversion, and lured to a location under duress by a Muslim youth named Arshad. Arshad, son of Habib, a resident of Hathras village, Wazirgunj police station area, Badaun, who had befriended her through social media approximately two months prior, recorded her video calls without her consent and used the recordings as a tool of sustained blackmail and coercion to force her to meet him and convert to Islam through nikah. The victim was rescued when alert members of the public noticed her distressed condition and informed her family. A case was registered against Arshad, and he has been taken into custody. Approximately two months prior to the incident, a message from an account named Arash appeared on the Hindu student's laptop. Arshad subsequently maintained continuous contact with her through social media, sending messages and making video calls. During the video calls, Arshad secretly recorded the conversations without the Hindu student's knowledge or consent. A few days later, he began using the recordings as a tool of blackmail, threatening to make them viral and inform her family members unless she agreed to meet him. Arshad also threatened to harm himself and die by suicide as additional instruments of psychological pressure against the Hindu student. Alongside the blackmail and self-harm threats, he exerted sustained pressure on her to convert to Islam and marry him through nikah. On Monday, March 23, the Hindu student had gone to the Government District Library to study when Arshad threatened her into meeting him at the Roadways Bus Stand. Fearing the consequences of his threats, she went to the bus stand, where Arshad took her on his motorcycle and began taking her toward a hotel on Ujhani Road. Near Lalpul Chowki, Arshad feigned a motorcycle breakdown and stopped. Members of the public who noticed the Hindu student's distressed and suspicious condition alerted her family. The Hindu student subsequently disclosed the full details of what had been done to her to her family. The Hindu student submitted a written complaint to the Civil Lines police station demanding action against Arshad. A case was registered against him, and an investigation was initiated. City Circle Officer Rajneesh Upadhyay confirmed that a case had been registered against the accused and that the investigation was underway. Arshad was taken into custody following the registration of the case.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". The sub-category here is "Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation and subtle indoctrination". The tertiary category here are "Victim says was brainwashed and groomed" and "Rape and sexual assault/harassment". Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. Another sub-category for this case is "Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion". 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. 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. Another primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The sub-category here is "Brainwashed and/or groomed". The tertiary category for this case is "Victim was brainwashed and/or groomed" and "Rape and sexual assault/harassment". 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. Another sub-category for this case is "Blackmailed to convert". 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. One other sub-category that this case qualifies for is "Forced conversion before marriage". The tertiary category here is "Forced to do Nikah". In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. Another sub-category for this case is "Assault or threat upon refusal to convert". When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime on the basis that Arshad, a Muslim youth carried out a deliberate and premeditated predatory operation against a Hindu student, systematically grooming her over approximately two months through sustained social media contact, secretly recording her video calls without her consent, and using the recordings as a tool of sustained blackmail and coercion to force her to meet him, convert to Islam, and marry him through nikah. The operation reflected a calculated and multi-dimensional campaign of psychological manipulation, blackmail, coercion, and forced conversion pressure directed specifically at a vulnerable Hindu woman. The foundation of Arshad's predatory operation was a sustained two-month grooming campaign carried out through continuous social media contact, messages, and video calls. Grooming is not a spontaneous act but a deliberate and calculated process through which a perpetrator systematically cultivates a victim's trust, emotional dependency, and vulnerability over time, progressively drawing them into a situation where coercion and exploitation become possible. The Hindu student's own written complaint to the police confirmed that she had been systematically contacted and manipulated by Arshad over this extended period, reflecting her recognition that the sustained social media contact had been a deliberate and calculated strategy of psychological manipulation designed to create a state of emotional dependency and vulnerability that could subsequently be exploited. The depth and effectiveness of the grooming were reflected in the Hindu student's initial compliance with Arshad's demands out of fear of the consequences of refusing, confirming that the psychological manipulation had been sustained and effective throughout the period of contact. The secret recording of the Hindu student's video calls without her knowledge or consent transformed an act of apparent social communication into a premeditated and calculated act of sexual coercion. The non-consensual recording of intimate video call material without consent is a serious act of sexual violation that weaponises the victim's private communications against her, creating a permanent instrument of blackmail and psychological control that can be deployed at any time to maintain coercive power over the victim. By secretly recording the Hindu student's video calls and subsequently threatening to make the recordings viral and inform her family members, Arshad converted the two months of sustained grooming into a sustained and organised campaign of blackmail directed at the Hindu student's dignity, privacy, and family relationships, creating a state of fear and helplessness designed to make compliance with his conversion and nikah demands appear to be the only means of escaping the threatened harm. The sustained pressure exerted by Arshad on the Hindu student to convert to Islam and marry him through nikah, delivered through a combination of blackmail threats, threats to make recordings viral, and threats to harm himself and die by suicide, reflected a deliberate and multi-dimensional campaign of coercive conversion pressure directed specifically at the Hindu student. The use of self-harm and suicide threats as additional instruments of psychological coercion alongside the blackmail threats reflected a calculated strategy of maximising the psychological pressure on the Hindu student by exploiting her emotional responses to both fear and guilt simultaneously. The deliberate combination of blackmail, viral threats, and self-harm threats as instruments of conversion pressure reflected a premeditated and organised conversion operation in which every available tool of psychological coercion was deployed to force the Hindu student into abandoning her Hindu faith and submitting to an Islamic nikah. The forced nikah demand was not merely a personal or romantic request but a deliberate and calculated attempt to force the Hindu student into an Islamic marriage ceremony that would have permanently altered her religious and social identity. Nikah is the Islamic marriage ceremony conducted under Islamic personal law, and its performance would have represented the formal and irreversible submission of the Hindu student to an Islamic religious framework, affecting her conversion through the instrument of marriage. By demanding that the Hindu student convert to Islam and marry him through nikah as the price of his silence about the recorded material, Arshad deliberately weaponised the trust as an instrument of forced religious conversion, using the threat of public humiliation and family disgrace as the coercive mechanism through which the conversion was to be achieved. The physical dimension of the case, in which Arshad threatened the Hindu student into meeting him at the Roadways Bus Stand and subsequently attempted to take her to a hotel on Ujhani Road on his motorcycle, reflected a deliberate and premeditated escalation from psychological coercion to physical control. The attempted transportation of the Hindu student to a hotel under duress reflected a calculated strategy of removing her from any environment where she might find help or escape, placing her entirely within Arshad's physical control in a location where the full force of his coercive demands could be imposed upon her without interference. The Hindu student's rescue by alert members of the public who noticed her distressed condition near Lalpul Chowki confirmed the serious and immediate physical danger she had been placed in by Arshad's sustained campaign of blackmail, coercion, and forced conversion pressure. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
