Hindu woman stripped and publicly beaten for resisting conversion pressure to Islam, her minor son also targeted

Case ID : 30a828c | Location : Kaushambi District, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 2 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a828c

Kaushambi District, Uttar Pradesh, India

2 May, 2026

Hindu woman stripped and publicly beaten for resisting conversion pressure to Islam, her minor son also targeted

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for refusal to convert

Case Summary

A Hindu woman was stripped and beaten after she refused to convert to Islam in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh. The assault followed sustained pressure on her and her family to abandon their faith. The violence extended to her minor son, escalating the severity of the incident. The Hindu woman, identified as Kusum Devi, a resident of Hidwa Kataiya village in the Sarai Akil police station area, was subjected to repeated coercion by multiple Muslim men from her locality. The perpetrators, identified as Iqbal Khan, Irfan Khan, Tufail Khan, Fuzail Khan, Afghan Khan, and Aman Khan, had been pressuring her for months to convert to Islam. She resisted these demands and refused to abandon her religious identity. On 6th September 2025, her son Parvesh was on his way to Purkhas Market to purchase groceries. During this time, the perpetrators intercepted him and deliberately ran over his leg using a four-wheeler vehicle. This act caused physical injury and was carried out in the context of ongoing pressure on the Hindu family to convert. Following this, the Hindu woman attempted to reach Kanaili Police Station with her injured son to file a complaint. On the way, she was intercepted again by the same group. She was physically assaulted, abused, stripped of her clothing, and beaten. The attack occurred in direct response to her refusal to convert, and was accompanied by continued intimidation. Despite approaching the police station and later the Superintendent of Police, her complaint did not result in immediate action. During this period, the perpetrators continued exerting pressure on her and her family. The then station in charge of Tilhapur police station summoned her and made her sign a blank sheet of paper under the pretext of resolving the matter, resulting in no solution. After receiving no relief, the Hindu woman approached the court seeking intervention. She pursued legal recourse after repeated inaction at the police level and continued pressure from the perpetrators. Acting on the court’s directions, the police registered a First Information Report against the named Muslim perpetrators approximately eight months after the incident. The case was then taken up for investigation under relevant legal provisions. The delay in registration of the First Information Report followed sustained efforts by the Hindu woman to secure action through formal channels. The investigation remained ongoing following the court’s intervention, with authorities stating that further action would be based on the facts established during the inquiry.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category - Predatory proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is - Harassments, 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 selected for this case is - Attack not resulting in death. Under this, the subcategory selected is - Attacked for refusal to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, the victim refuses to succumb to the pressure/threats. Once the victim refuses, the perpetrator proceeds to attack/assault the victim owing to his/her refusal to convert. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The violence then is another hate crime driven by the victim’s refusal to abandon his professed faith, Hinduism, and convert to the religion of a non-Hindu perpetrator. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing violence towards the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because a Hindu woman and her minor son were subjected to sustained coercion, targeted violence, and public humiliation after she refused to convert to Islam. The perpetrators were Muslim men from her locality who repeatedly pressured her to abandon her faith. The violence escalated when she resisted these demands. Religion was not incidental, it was the central reason she and her family were targeted. The primary religious marker was the sustained harassment, threats, and coercion directed at the Hindu woman to force her conversion. The perpetrators repeatedly approached her over a prolonged period and pressured her to abandon her Hindu identity. This was religiously significant because conversion involves renouncing one’s faith, beliefs, and cultural identity. The perpetrators did not randomly target her, they specifically focused on her as a Hindu woman and persistently attempted to alter her religious identity. They chose prolonged psychological pressure as a method to weaken resistance and create fear. This demonstrated a deliberate strategy to break her attachment to her faith. Their actions showed clear intent to target her because she was Hindu and to force her into religious submission. The second religious marker was the violent attack on her minor son. This was religiously significant because the attack extended beyond the woman to her family, targeting her child to exert pressure on her decisions. The perpetrators selected a moment when the child was vulnerable and defenceless. This act was not random violence; it was calculated to intimidate the Hindu woman by harming her son. It showed that the perpetrators were willing to inflict physical harm on her family to enforce conversion. This reflected a deliberate escalation of violence aimed at breaking her resistance as a Hindu mother. The third religious marker was the assault that followed her refusal to convert and her attempt to seek legal protection. When the Hindu woman tried to approach the police to file a complaint, the perpetrators intercepted her again. She was stripped, beaten, and publicly humiliated. This was religiously significant because the violence was directly linked to her refusal to abandon her faith. The perpetrators chose to punish her at the moment she sought justice, reinforcing control and fear. Public stripping and assault inflicted both physical harm and social humiliation, intensifying the impact on her as a Hindu woman. This demonstrated that the perpetrators deliberately used violence to enforce religious compliance and suppress resistance. Their actions showed a clear intent to target and punish her specifically because she refused to convert from Hinduism. This incident was not an isolated occurrence but reflected a broader pattern of targeting a Hindu woman through coercion, threats, and violence to force her to abandon her faith. The perpetrators repeatedly pressured her over months to convert, and escalated to physical assault and public humiliation when she refused. The attack on her minor son further intensified this pressure, extending harm to her family to break her resistance. The sequence of coercion, violence, and intimidation stems from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker. Disclaimer: The exact date of the initial contact between the Hindu woman and the perpetrators, as well as when the threats and coercion first began, was not specified in the available sources. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was reported. In the absence of a confirmed start date, 3rd May 2026 was used as the indicative incident date based on the publication timeline. This date was recorded for documentation purposes only.