Minor Hindu girl dies by suicide after being coerced for Christian conversion; her Hindu fiancé also driven to suicide due to harassment
Banswara, Rajasthan, India 
31 March, 2025
Case Summary
In Banswara district, Rajasthan, a 17-year-old minor Hindu girl died by suicide after being subjected to abduction and forced marriage by a Christian man named Kishore. She had sustained prolonged harassment and pressure for religious conversion. The victim's Hindu fiancé was also constantly harassed and threatened by the accused, which even resulted in him committing suicide. This incident came to light when the 70-year-old grandmother of the deceased girl filed a complaint at Rajtalab Police Station against the accused, a converted Christian, identified as Kishore. She stated that Kishore had kidnapped her granddaughter about a year ago (2025). According to the grandmother, with the assistance of Christian missionaries, the minor girl was forcibly married to Kishore as per Christian rituals in a church located near Chidiyawasa on Udaipur Road. She stated that the girl was made to read Christian religious texts and was repeatedly forced to convert to Christianity. The grandmother further stated that the accused deceived the girl by calling her to a location and taking photographs with her while both were dressed in wedding clothes. She also stated that after extensive efforts, the family later searched for the girl and somehow brought her back home. Subsequently, the family arranged her marriage with a Hindu boy from their own community. However, the accused Kishore came to know of this proposed marriage. According to the grandmother, he threatened and harassed the Hindu groom to such an extent that he died by suicide about a month earlier. After this incident, the girl became increasingly frightened. The victim's grandmother stated that the accused continued to harass her even thereafter. She linked the continued fear, harassment, and coercion to the girl’s deteriorating mental state. Unable to bear the sustained pressure, fear, and emotional trauma, the minor Hindu girl died by suicide. Following the post-mortem conducted on 1 April 2026, her body was handed over to the family. Police commenced an investigation into the matter after the complaint was filed. Statements of the deceased's family members and other persons connected with the incident were expected to be recorded as part of the ongoing inquiry. Following the incident, members of the BJP Mahila Morcha and workers of Hindu organisations, including district president Sheetal Bhandari, reached the mortuary of MG Hospital and demanded strict action in the case.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected 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. The other subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category selected is- Conversion of Minor and Family/Friends of deceased victim says was brainwashed/groomed. 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. The other sub-category is: "Suicide after pressure to convert". When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, owing to the humiliation or pressure/threat, the victim commits suicide. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The pressure/threat that is employed leads to the Hindu victim taking his own life. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing suicide by the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. Another primary category selected is- Attack resulting in death. The subcategory selected is- Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Under this category, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. This case was a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because a minor Hindu girl was forcibly abducted, married as per Christian rituals to the Christian man named Kishore, and pressured to convert to Christianity by making her read Christian religious scriptures with the intent to brainwash her. This led to continuous harassment of the victim, culminating in her suicide and making it a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime that destroyed a young Hindu girl's life through targeted religious persecution. First, it was important to state that the victim was a minor, which meant the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was absent from the outset. Minors, due to their young age, are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion, and the Christian perpetrator completely exploited this vulnerability by abducting her, marrying her according to Christian traditions, and forcing her to convert to Christianity. All these actions showcased a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime aimed at exploiting the victim's age-related vulnerability to erase her Hindu identity. The act of abducting the Hindu girl for forced conversion showcased deep-seated religious animosity, as taking a minor away from her safe family confines, transporting her to a church, marrying her per Christian rituals, and forcing her to convert amounted to a blatant violation of her fundamental rights and her freedom to practise her religion. Such forced marriage and conversion served as tools to completely strip the victim of her religious identity, imposing a foreign faith to obliterate her Hindu roots and heritage. This systematic assault on her faith and person marked it unequivocally as a religiously motivated hate crime. The victim was also forced to read Christian religious texts and repeatedly pressured to convert to Christianity. Imposing the scriptures of another faith on a minor Hindu girl amounted to forced religious brainwashing, where the perpetrators sought to reprogramme her mind by introducing Christian doctrines and sowing doubt in her Hindu beliefs. This manipulation aimed to replace her innate devotion with a foreign faith ideology, representing a profound act of coercion that qualified as a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. Following this, the perpetrator not only harassed the Hindu girl constantly, but also extended his aggression to her Hindu fiancé by threatening the boy so relentlessly that he died by suicide about a month before her own death. The Hindu fiancé was targeted precisely for his Hindu faith, given the perpetrator's deep animosity towards Hinduism; it was obvious that the groom faced persecution for his religious identity and for attempting to save the Hindu girl by marrying her, rescuing her from the clutches of the Christian perpetrator. Had they married, the perpetrator would have lost all chances to convert the girl to Christianity, positioning the Hindu groom as direct opposition to his predatory agenda and marking the attacks on both as a clear case of religiously motivated hate crime. This also showcased the perpetrator's religious zeal to enforce Christianity on the Hindu girl and strip her away from any Hindu man who might enable her to practise her native faith, viewing their potential union as a direct threat to his conversion agenda. By targeting not only the girl but also her prospective Hindu partner, he aimed to isolate her completely from her cultural and religious moorings, ensuring no Hindu influence could reclaim her from his imposed faith. The victim endured ongoing threats and harassment specifically for refusing conversion, which relentlessly eroded her mental health until it drove her to suicide. This unyielding pressure, rooted in religious coercion, created an inescapable nightmare where every day brought fresh demands to abandon Hinduism, showcasing the perpetrator's fanatical religious zeal to convert her at any cost, even her life. Her desperate act of suicide became the tragic endpoint of sustained torment designed to break her spirit, as the perpetrator's obsession with imposing Christianity proved so intense that he pushed a young Hindu girl to the brink of self-destruction rather than accept her steadfast devotion to her faith. This transformed what should have been a life of freedom into one of terror, proving the hate crime's profound, life-ending impact driven by extreme anti-Hindu animosity. Overall, this case met several parameters of a hate crime, from abduction and forced marriage to brainwashing and harassment, leading to the Hindu girl committing suicide. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the dates of incidents based on when the crime occurs or when the victim's ordeal begins, rather than when it is reported by the media. In this case, media reports have not specified the exact date when the victim was abducted. It only states she was abducted in 2025. The only other date mentioned is 1 April 2026, the day when her post-mortem was conducted. Using both, an indicative date of 1 April 2025 is selected. This is recorded for documentation purposes only. In this incident, considering the fact that even another Hindu boy, the fiancé, died by suicide after facing harassment from the Christian accused, the victim count has been selected as '2'.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
2
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
