Married Hindu woman pressured for religious conversion and nikah, her family coerced to eat meat by Muslim family in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30a8854 | Location : Bara Banki, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 20 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a8854

Bara Banki, Uttar Pradesh, India

20 May, 2026

Married Hindu woman pressured for religious conversion and nikah, her family coerced to eat meat by Muslim family in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In Icholi town, Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Divyanshi Gupta, wife of Sunil Gupta, was pressured to convert to Islam and enter into nikah (Islamic marriage) by a Muslim man, Mohammad Aman, and his family. The accused lived in the same neighbourhood as the victim. The accused and his family also forced the victim's family to consume meat. According to media reports, the victim used to visit the accused’s residence to get her clothes stitched, and during that time, Aman began harassing her after obtaining her mobile number. The victim stated that one day, the accused called her, her husband, and her mother-in-law to his house and locked them in a room. An Islamic cleric (maulana) and several other Muslims, including a man named Maqsood Alam, were already present in the room, preparing for the nikah between the victim and the accused Aman. They also attempted to force-feed meat to the victim’s family. Hearing the commotion inside, the victim’s relatives rushed to the scene and began banging on the door, which prompted people nearby to gather. Seeing the crowd grow, the accused opened the door, and the victim’s family managed to escape. The victim’s family approached the local police, but no substantial action was taken. The local police only initiated proceedings under Section 151 for disturbing the peace. Dissatisfied with the local police’s failure to register a case, the victim appealed to the Chief Minister for an impartial investigation and the registration of a First Information Report (FIR). Police stated that the matter was under investigation and that further action would be taken based on the facts established during the inquiry. A video of the victim and her family sharing their ordeal went viral on social media. Following this, the police took action and arrested Mohammad Aman and Maqsood Alam.

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 second primary category selected is- Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is- Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. This case constitutes a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because a married Hindu woman was pressured to convert to Islam and marry the Muslim perpetrator, Mohammad Aman. The accused, along with his family and another accused, Maqsood Alam, continuously pressured the victim to abandon her faith and accept Islam. They had also organised a forced nikah between the victim and the accused while simultaneously attempting to force the victim’s family to consume meat, something they considered sacrilegious and contrary to their religious beliefs and traditions. Taken together, these actions demonstrated targeted hostility towards the victim and her family because of their Hindu identity. In this case, the victim and the accused were not in any form of relationship, nor had the victim ever shown any interest in the accused, Mohammad Aman, as she was already a married Hindu woman. Despite being fully aware that she was married and belonged to a different faith, the accused persistently harassed her and pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. The repeated attempts to coerce the Hindu victim into religious conversion reflected clear religious animosity and intolerance towards her faith. Forced conversion, especially when carried out through sustained harassment, intimidation, and psychological pressure, violated the victim’s religious autonomy and her fundamental right to freely practise and profess her religion. The targeting of the victim specifically because she was Hindu highlighted the discriminatory and hate-driven nature of the crime. The act of luring the victim and her family into a room, locking them inside, and attempting to force the woman to convert to Islam further demonstrated the extreme measures the perpetrators were willing to take in pursuit of religious conversion. Holding the victim and her family hostage showcased that the accused, Mohammad Aman, along with his family and associates, were prepared to cross all limits in order to pressure the victim into abandoning her religion and entering into nikah with the accused. The confinement and intimidation of the family illustrated the coercive and targeted nature of the offence. The attempt to forcibly make the victim’s family, particularly her husband and mother-in-law, consume meat further made the religious animosity behind the crime evident. The target was not only the victim but also her family because of their Hindu identity. A large section of Hindus, particularly vegetarians, refrain from consuming meat as part of their religious and cultural beliefs, and the victim’s family belonged to such a background. The perpetrators’ attempt to force-feed them meat while simultaneously pressuring the victim to convert and undergo nikah demonstrated an effort to humiliate, violate, and desecrate the religious identity and autonomy of the family. The harassment and coercion directed at the victim’s relatives showed that they, too, were targeted because they were Hindus. This pattern of intimidation and religious coercion amounted to a clear case of an anti-Hindu hate crime. The initial police response in the case also raised serious concerns. Despite the victim and her family describing sustained pressure for religious conversion, confinement, intimidation, and attempts to force them to consume meat against their religious beliefs, the local police initially registered proceedings only under Section 151 for disturbing the peace and did not file a case related to forced conversion or coercion. The reluctance to immediately act on the specific assertions made by the Hindu victim and her family reflected a pattern where complaints involving anti-Hindu hostility are often not addressed with the seriousness they warrant. Such inaction creates an environment in which perpetrators feel emboldened and act with impunity, believing that there will be little legal consequence for targeting Hindus on the basis of their religious identity. Overall, such instances of predatory proselytisation are rooted in deep-seated doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu community. Therefore, this case is being added to the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurs and when the victim’s ordeal begins, rather than when the incident is reported in the media. However, in this case, the exact date on which the victim’s ordeal began has not been specified. Therefore, the date on which the incident first came to light through media reports has been used as the indicative incident date. The earliest known media report regarding this case was published on 21 May 2026. Henceforth, this date has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. In this case, although the main perpetrator was Mohammad Aman, his family members were also involved, along with the Islamic cleric and Maqsood Alam, in pressuring the victim to convert to Islam and forcing her family to consume meat. However, since the exact number and identities of all the accused family members have not been specified, only the Islamic cleric and Maqsood Alam have been individually identified in addition to Mohammad Aman. Henceforth, the total perpetrator count has been conservatively recorded as three (3). This estimate has been recorded for documentation purposes only.