Hindu transgender woman pressured for religious conversion, issued death threats on refusal by Muslim men in Tikamgarh

Case ID : 30a7d4c | Location : Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 14 April, 2026

Case ID : 30a7d4c

Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, India

14 April, 2026

Hindu transgender woman pressured for religious conversion, issued death threats on refusal by Muslim men in Tikamgarh

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu transgender woman named Babli Kinnar faced pressure to convert to Islam or accept death from a few Muslim men. The accused even hired fake transgender people to scam people by demanding money. Even other transgender women who were Babli's friends were also issued death threats by the perpetrators. According to media reports, Babli Kinnar had lived in Tikamgarh for the past 30 years, earning her living by singing and dancing at weddings and child births, a traditional custom observed in many Hindu trans communities. Her guru, the late Kesharbai, declared Babli the heir to all her movable and immovable property in her will dated 5 November 2024. The Muslim accused, Sabu Khan, Shakir Khan, and Bhajju Khan, residents of Mote Mohalla in Tikamgarh, along with their brother-in-law Jalu Haji from Deori in Sagar district, formed a criminal gang. They hired two fake transgender individuals, named Tanu Dubey and Sunena, to defraud the public of large sums of money. The gang also interfered in Babli Kinnar's jurisdiction, despite having no right to do so. Babli Kinnar filed written complaints against these individuals with the Superintendent of Police in Tikamgarh and the Rural Police Station. The accused promised in writing at that time not to interfere further. Despite these promises, the gang continued to threaten Babli Kinnar and pressured her to convert to Islam. The perpetrators told her to "either convert to Islam or face death". The death threats extended to the entire Kinnar community, placing their lives and property in danger. Distressed by this constant harassment for conversion, on 15 April 2026, transgender people in Tikamgarh, including Babli, submitted a complaint to the in-charge at Kotwali police station, demanding strict action against the culprits. The entire transgender community stated that they stood with Babli and would not let anyone harm her or force her to convert to Islam.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The 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. This case stands as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because the Muslim perpetrators pressured a Hindu transgender woman to convert to Islam or be killed. These stark ultimatums left no room for choice, transforming religious conversion into a weapon of coercion. The forced pressure to abandon Hinduism for Islam exposed raw religious animosity, targeting the victim's faith as the primary obstacle to be demolished through intimidation. Forcing a Hindu individual to convert to Islam amounted to deep-seated religious animosity from the perpetrators, violating her religious autonomy and fundamental right to freely practise her faith. They viewed her Hindu identity as inferior, something to overpower, discard, and forcibly wipe out. Such aggressive proselytisation sought to strip the Hindu victim of her faith and identity entirely, reducing her lifelong spiritual heritage to a conquest. This systematic erasure of religious belief marked it unequivocally as a religiously motivated hate crime. Such acts are a result of the perpetrators' deep-rooted hatred for Hinduism and its adherents. The Muslim perpetrators subjected the Hindu transgender woman to relentless ultimatums of convert or die, exploiting her vulnerability within the transgender community to forcibly strip her of her religious beliefs. This binary demand weaponised mortal fear to dismantle her lifelong Hindu devotion after thirty years of traditional practices like singing, dancing at weddings, and blessing child births, all deeply connected to her Hindu faith and identity. The perpetrators used death threats to obliterate that identity, revealing intent to eradicate Hinduism from her life. Such acts showcased that the perpetrators were ready to cross any limits to eradicate her Hindu identity and forcibly convert her to Islam, making it a religiously motivated crime. The perpetrators' criminal and predatory nature emerged clearly through earlier quarrels with Babli Kinnar over jurisdictional rights and deliberate economic sabotage by hiring fake transgenders Tanu Dubey and Sunena to run scams, defrauding locals of substantial sums. This calculated financial warfare directly undermined Babli's ability to sustain her traditional Hindu Kinnar livelihood of singing and dancing at weddings and child births, creating desperation that made her more vulnerable to conversion pressure. Far from random criminality, these actions represented a hate crime strategy: weakening the economic foundations of a Hindu transgender leader made her faith appear unsustainable, positioning conversion to Islam as her only "salvation." The perpetrators laid this groundwork methodically, knowing that impoverishing a Hindu devotee erodes their spiritual resilience and opens pathways for religious conquest, demonstrating sophisticated religious animosity disguised as turf rivalry. The threats extended beyond Babli to the entire Hindu transgender community, endangering their lives and property while demanding conversion. This communal targeting instilled widespread fear, aiming to sever Hindu trans individuals from their ancestral faith through orchestrated intimidation. The pattern of broken promises after prior complaints, repeated harassment, and death threats underscored premeditated religious hostility, far exceeding mere property disputes. Overall, this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated crime. Therefore, this case has been added to the Hate Crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker database. 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 did not state the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. The only relevant date stated is when the complaint was lodged by the victim, that is, 15 April 2026. Hence, this date has been recorded as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.