Hindu minor girl pressured to convert by Muslim man posing as Hindu, abducted from railway station
Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India 
17 May, 2026
Case Summary
A Hindu minor girl was deceived by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. She was abducted with the intention of conversion. She disappeared in Shohratgarh, Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh, on the evening of 18th May 2026. Her family searched for her frantically after she failed to return home. Hours later, they discovered her at Shohratgarh railway station with a Muslim man who had concealed his religious identity and approached her using a false Hindu name. The Hindu girl was found being pulled away by the hand at the railway station. Her family intervened before she could be taken away from the town. The incident exposed a sustained pattern of deception, concealment of religious identity, and an attempt to isolate the minor from her family. According to the complaint filed by the victim’s father, he was in the local market at around 7 pm on 18th May 2026 when his wife informed him by phone that their daughter had been missing for a considerable time. He immediately returned home and began searching for the Hindu minor girl across the area, but could not locate her. During the search, a local resident informed him that his daughter had been seen at Shohratgarh railway station with a young man from the locality. The girl’s father then travelled to the railway station with his elder son. Upon reaching the station, they saw the Muslim perpetrator holding the minor girl by the hand and dragging her towards the station premises. When the elder son moved towards him to stop him, the Muslim perpetrator pushed him away and attempted to flee from the scene. He also issued threats during the confrontation. The victim was then brought back home safely by her family before she could be taken away further. After returning home, the Hindu minor girl’s family confronted the Muslim perpetrator’s relatives regarding the incident. During this confrontation, multiple members of the Muslim perpetrator’s family, including Rashid, his wife, and his sons Siraj, Riyaz, Golu, and Guddu, abused and threatened the Hindu victim’s family. During the altercation, the minor girl’s mother fainted due to the distress caused by the incident and the confrontation. During questioning, the victim disclosed that the Muslim perpetrator had introduced himself to her using the false Hindu name “Raj”. He had concealed his Muslim identity while communicating with her and presented himself as a Hindu man in order to gain her trust. The Hindu minor girl stated that he regularly spoke to her while pretending to belong to the Hindu community. The deception continued until her family intercepted him at the railway station. The complaint and the minor girl’s statement further revealed that the Muslim perpetrator had used false names and misleading personal details while interacting with her. The family stated that he had been attempting to take the girl away from her home and force her into religious conversion and marriage. The incident involved deliberate concealment of religious identity while targeting a Hindu minor girl for isolation from her family and community. Following the complaint, police registered a case against seven individuals in connection with the incident. The case was registered under sections 191(2), 115(2), 352, 351(3), 110, 137(2), and 87 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act 2021. Police recorded the victim’s statement and recorded the concealment of religious identity, the attempted abduction of the Hindu minor girl, the threats issued to her family, and the alleged attempt to pressure her into religious conversion and marriage. At the time of reporting, the investigation remained ongoing.
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 - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Under this, the tertiary categories selected are - Conversion of minor and Victim says she 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 primary category selected for this case is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected is - Man pretends to be Hindu. Under this, the tertiary category selected is - Name changed. 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 in 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. Another subcategory selected in this case is - Brainwashed and/or groomed. Under this, the tertiary categories selected are - 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 primary category selected for this case is - Attack not resulting in death. Within this, 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. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because a Muslim perpetrator targeted a Hindu minor girl through sustained deception, concealment of religious identity, and manipulation designed to isolate her from her family and religious community. He approached the Hindu victim while pretending to be Hindu, used a false Hindu name, and built trust by masking his real identity. The case further revealed an attempt to take the Hindu minor girl away from her family for religious conversion and marriage. The targeting of a Hindu minor through deception, coercion, and religious concealment demonstrated a deliberate attempt to exploit her Hindu identity and vulnerability for conversion related purposes. The primary religious marker in this case was the deliberate grooming of a Hindu minor girl through false religious representation. The Muslim perpetrator concealed his real identity and introduced himself to the Hindu victim using a false Hindu name. This deception was not incidental. It was the central mechanism through which he gained the trust of the minor girl and emotionally isolated her from the religious and familial safeguards that would normally have protected her. By pretending to belong to the Hindu community, the perpetrator deliberately exploited the familiarity and trust the victim associated with someone from her own religion and cultural background. The deception was carefully designed to lower suspicion and create emotional dependence. Had he revealed his real identity from the beginning, the same level of access and influence over the Hindu minor girl would likely not have been possible. His conduct, therefore, demonstrated a calculated intent to weaponise Hindu identity itself as a tool for grooming and manipulation. The second major religious marker was the targeting of a Hindu minor girl for conversion and marriage. The investigation and the victim’s own statement revealed that the perpetrator intended to take her away, convert her religion, and marry her. The sequence of events showed that conversion was not incidental to the relationship but one of its central objectives. The perpetrator first concealed his religion, then emotionally manipulated the Hindu minor girl, and finally attempted to remove her from the protection of her family before conversion and marriage could take place. The victim’s age is also significant. As a minor, she was especially vulnerable to emotional manipulation, coercion, and psychological influence. A child cannot fully comprehend the lifelong consequences of religious conversion and marriage in the same way as an adult. The perpetrator consciously exploited both her age and her Hindu identity to secure compliance through deception rather than informed consent or transparency. Another important religious marker was the intimidation faced by the Hindu family when they tried to rescue the girl. When the victim’s father and brother reached Shohratgarh railway station and intervened, the perpetrator pushed the brother, threatened the family, and attempted to flee. Later, when the family confronted the perpetrator’s relatives, multiple Muslim family members verbally abused and intimidated them. The hostility escalated immediately after the Hindu family resisted the removal and conversion of their minor daughter, showing collective resistance against efforts to prevent the targeting of the Hindu girl. This incident is not isolated but reflects a broader pattern where Hindu girls are targeted through deception, false religious identity, emotional grooming, and coercion for religious conversion and exploitation. The deliberate concealment of identity, the use of a false Hindu persona, and the targeting of a vulnerable Hindu minor demonstrated clear hostility towards the victim’s professed faith and a calculated attempt to sever her from her Hindu identity and upbringing. Given that this case involved deception, grooming, coercive conversion intent, and the targeting of a Hindu minor through false religious representation, it was added to the hate crime database of the 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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 5 to 10
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
