Hindu minor girl lured under false pretext of marriage, raped and forced to abandon her faith by Muslim man
Ashoknagar, Madhya Pradesh, India 
5 May, 2023
Case Summary
An 18-year-old Hindu girl from Ashoknagar, Madhya Pradesh, was raped repeatedly over a period of three years by Asif Khan, a Muslim resident of Azad Mohalla, Ashoknagar, who had kept her under his control under the false pretext of marriage. Throughout this period, Khan subjected her to sustained mental and physical pressure to convert from Hinduism to Islam. His mother was fully aware of and actively complicit in the entire course of conduct, assisting her son throughout. On 5 May 2026, the victim's brother reported her sudden disappearance at Kotwali police station, Ashoknagar. Superintendent of Police Rajeev Kumar Mishra immediately directed Inspector Ravipratap Singh Chauhan to take action. Using technical evidence and intelligence, police recovered the victim safely within two hours of the complaint being filed. The victim recorded her statement before a female police officer, disclosing three years of rape under the pretext of marriage and sustained pressure to convert. On the directions of the Superintendent of Police, a case was registered against Asif Khan and his mother under BNS [Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita] sections 65(1) and 87, POCSO [Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act] sections 5L/6, and Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act 2021 sections 3/5. Both accused were arrested and produced in court on 6 May 2026.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". The sub-category for the 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 sub-category for this case is "Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination". The tertiary categories here are "Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed", "Rape and sexual assault/harassment" and "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. Another primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". Another sub-category for this case is "Brainwashed and/or groomed". The tertiary categories for this case are "Rape and sexual assault/harassment", "Conversion of minor" and "Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed". 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 "Forced conversion before marriage". 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. One other 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. Another sub-category for this case is "Rape for refusal to convert". When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity 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 pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. As the case may be, in such cases, the non-Hindu man forces himself sexually on the Hindu woman when she refuses his advances and pressures to convert her religion. The rape of the woman is often seen as either a punishment for the woman refusing to convert. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Asif Khan's conduct toward the victim was not opportunistic criminality that incidentally involved religious pressure. It was a structured operation in which sexual exploitation and religious conversion were pursued simultaneously as twin objectives. The false pretext of marriage was the entry point: it provided the relational cover under which Khan gained sustained physical access to the victim while maintaining the fiction of a legitimate relationship. The victim's compliance was secured not through consent but through the expectation of marriage, an expectation that was deliberately manufactured and maintained over three years to ensure continued access. The victim was approximately 15 years old when the abuse began. The targeting of a Hindu minor reflects a calculated assessment of vulnerability. A teenage girl, emotionally invested in the promise of marriage and without the social or institutional resources to recognise or resist a sustained grooming operation, represented an ideal target for a conversion campaign that required years of sustained access to achieve its objective. The POCSO charges registered by police confirm that the abuse commenced when the victim was a minor, establishing that Khan selected and targeted a Hindu girl at an age of particular vulnerability and maintained control over her for three years. The sustained mental and physical pressure to convert ran parallel to the sexual abuse throughout the entire three-year period. The two dimensions of the abuse were not separate. They were integrated. The sexual exploitation created a condition of psychological dependency and shame that made the victim more susceptible to conversion pressure, while the conversion pressure reinforced the accused's dominance over her religious identity alongside his physical dominance over her body. The active involvement of Khan's mother in the entire course of conduct is a further and significant religious marker. The mother's participation establishes that the abuse was not the conduct of a lone individual acting on personal impulse but a family-level operation in which the exploitation of a Hindu minor for conversion purposes was a shared objective. The willingness of a mother to assist her son in raping and coercing a Hindu girl into conversion over three years reflects a household-level ideological commitment to the conversion agenda that extends the religious motivation of the crime beyond the individual perpetrator. It is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. The intent behind this case was not solely romantic or sexual in origin. It was religious. Asif Khan did not target the victim because he was attracted to her as an individual. He targeted her because she was Hindu, because she was young, and because her age and emotional vulnerability made her susceptible to a conversion operation that required years of sustained access to execute. The false marriage pretext was not a romantic deception. It was a conversion strategy. The sustained rape was not an end in itself. It was an instrument of control designed to maintain the psychological dependency through which conversion pressure could be applied continuously over three years. The fact that Khan's mother participated fully in the operation establishes that the conversion of a Hindu minor was a household objective, not a personal impulse. The simultaneous charges under the Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act 2021, alongside POCSO, confirm what the facts make plain: this was a religiously motivated operation directed at a Hindu minor, in which sexual violence served the conversion agenda and the conversion agenda gave direction to the sexual violence. The two were inseparable because they shared the same intent, which was the destruction of a Hindu girl's religious identity through whatever means her vulnerability made possible. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, Asif Khan's conduct reflected more than sexual predation. By targeting a Hindu minor under the false pretext of marriage, maintaining sustained sexual exploitation and conversion pressure over three years, and operating with the active support of his mother, his actions demonstrated a deliberate and structured campaign to separate a Hindu girl from her faith and her community through the simultaneous exploitation of her body and her religious identity. The victim was targeted specifically because she was Hindu, and every instrument of the operation, being false marriage promises, sustained rape, and relentless conversion pressure, was chosen because it would be most effective against a young Hindu girl in conditions of emotional dependency and social isolation. This reflects an underlying hostility toward Hindu religious identity that cannot be characterised as anything other than religiously motivated. 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 Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred, not when it was reported or published. The source confirms that the abuse began approximately three years prior to publication. Therefore, 6 May 2023 has been used as the primary incident date, reflecting the approximate commencement of the accused's exploitation of the victim. The year aligns with the start of the victim's ordeal, while the date and month align with when it was reported in the media. This has been used for documentation purposes only.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
