Minor Hindu girl abducted, married through Hindu rituals, forced to convert and visit Islamic shrines by Muslim man posing as Hindu
Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
23 December, 2024
Case Summary
In the Sadat Police Station area of Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was lured into a relationship and abducted by a Muslim man named Mohammad Armaan, who pretended to be a Hindu man named Bhola. He married her in a temple as per Hindu rituals and then raped her several times. Following this, he forcibly made her visit Islamic shrines like mazars and mosques and eventually began pressuring the girl to convert to Islam. According to reports, the victim was a student in class 8 when this crime occurred. This incident came to light when, on 6 April 2026, after the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Ghazipur delivered a stern verdict against the accused Mohammad Armaan in the case of kidnapping, rape, and forced religious conversion of the minor girl. The POCSO court convicted the accused and sentenced him to 25 years of rigorous imprisonment. A fine of 55,000 rupees was also imposed, which would be given to the victim as compensation. As per the case details, the incident was from the Sadat police station area of Ghazipur. According to Special Public Prosecutor Ravikant Pandey, the accused kidnapped the minor Hindu girl on 24 December 2024. He then took her to the Phulpur area of Azamgarh, where he married her as per Hindu rituals in a temple and kept her with him for approximately four months. During this time, he raped her several times and impregnated her. He also pressured her to convert to Islam. Police investigation also revealed that the accused had forcibly taken the minor girl to Islamic religious sites like mosques and mazars. He later brought her to the Makdoompur mazar in Ghazipur, where police recovered her safely and arrested the accused. A case was filed against the accused. The trial began on 1 May 2025, after charges were framed. The police registered a case against the accused, Arman alias Bhola, under sections 363, 366, 376, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 5L/6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. A total of eight witnesses were presented by the police in court against the accused, and based on the evidence and testimony, the court convicted the accused and sentenced him to 25 years of rigorous imprisonment.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected in this case is- Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory 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 categories selected are- Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Conversion of minor. 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 second primary category selected in this case is- Crimes against in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories selected are- Name Changed, Marries as per Hindu rituals. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. The other subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary categories selected are- Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Conversion of Minor. 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. The other subcategory selected is- Forced conversion after marriage. The tertiary category selected is- Forced to go to Mosque. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to any Abrahamic faith, like Islam, begins after marriage. 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. 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 her religion after marriage. 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 situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo 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. In this case, a minor Hindu girl was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man named Armaan, who pretended to be a Hindu man named Bhola. He abducted her, married her in a temple, raped her repeatedly, pressured her to convert to Islam, and forced her to visit Islamic shrines. All these actions together amount to a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime, as they targeted her specifically because of her Hindu identity. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu demonstrated a clear bias and malicious intent towards the minor Hindu girl's religion. By hiding his true identity, the Muslim man manipulated her trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit her based on her religious background. Additionally, the marriage in the temple legitimised the relationship in her eyes and within her Hindu community. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she entered a relationship and marriage with, as well as an infringement upon her religious beliefs. Thus, the perpetrator's deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment served not just as a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but as a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused knew that the minor girl, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu girls are specifically singled out using false identities by Muslim men, often with coercion or conversion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism and exposed a deeper animosity toward Hindus and their beliefs. Following this, the accused abducted the minor Hindu girl away from the confines of her home. Here, it is important to state that the victim was a minor; henceforth, the element of consent and a genuine change of conscience were missing from the outset. Minors, by their very age, are most vulnerable to manipulation and coercion because they do not fully understand the long-term consequences of religious conversion and marriage. The Muslim perpetrator exploited this vulnerability to trap her in an exploitative relationship and then pressure her to convert, all of which makes it a clear instance of a hate crime. Hence, in this case, the act of kidnapping the minor Hindu girl from her safe home environment and then forcibly marrying her in a temple under false pretences amounted to a deeply predatory form of harassment, meticulously designed with the ulterior motive of religious conversion and the systematic erosion of her Hindu identity. This predatory sequence of entrapment and coercion made it a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. The accused married the minor Hindu girl in a temple as per Hindu rituals. He did this to make her believe even more that he was Hindu. He used these Hindu rituals just as a tool to deepen her entrapment in his deceit, to reinforce her belief in his false identity, and then to sexually exploit her and force her to convert to Islam. This act of the Muslim perpetrator desecrated the sanctity of Hindu rituals. Hindu rituals like marriage hold deep-seated religious significance, and the fact that the perpetrator used these rituals merely as a tool to strip the victim of her Hindu faith showcased deep-seated religious animosity towards the Hindu community and their faith, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. After all this, the minor Hindu girl was subjected to multiple rapes. Here, the sexual violence was not committed out of mere sexual gratification but to dominate the minor Hindu girl due to her religious identity. The whole aim of this sexual violence was religiously motivated, enshrined in anti-Hindu animosity. The perpetrator sought to dominate and humiliate the minor Hindu girl for her faith identity by using the tool of sexual violence. These religiously motivated rapes were done to break her spirit and make her more vulnerable to conversion, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Following all this, the minor Hindu girl faced repeated pressure to convert to Islam. This forced conversion laid bare the true intent from the very start: luring her into a relationship by masquerading as Hindu, conducting a sham marriage according to Hindu customs, abducting her from her home, and subjecting her to repeated rapes, all orchestrated with the ultimate goal of religious conversion. Such forced religious conversion directly violated the minor Hindu girl's religious autonomy and fundamental rights, marking it unequivocally as a religiously motivated hate crime. Conversions accomplished through relentless harassment, threats, and coercion embody pure religious animosity. Far from stemming from any wilful conviction on her part, this conversion arose solely from brutal external coercion, revealing the perpetrator's deep-seated religious animosity towards the minor Hindu girl and cementing its status as a religiously motivated hate crime. The perpetrator also compelled the Hindu victim to visit several Islamic shrines, such as mazaars and mosques. This calculated tactic aimed to slowly enforce Islam upon her; by repeatedly taking the minor Hindu girl to these Islamic shrines and forcing her to grow accustomed to them, he subtly yet forcibly introduced Islamic practices into her life, persisting time and again to ensure she completely abandoned her Hindu practices and rituals. This insidious process constituted a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. It further exemplified forced conversion by compelling her to embrace another faith and participate in visiting the religious shrines of that faith, thereby marking it unequivocally as a hate crime. In summary, this entire case revealed the deep-seated, meticulously planned, and premeditated nature of the assault specifically targeting the minor Hindu girl because of her Hindu identity, establishing it beyond doubt as a religiously motivated hate crime. Such patterns are firmly rooted in profound doctrinal animosity towards Hindus and their faith identity. Therefore, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia 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 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Perpetrator held guilty by court
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
