Hindu minor girls complain of sexual misconduct and pressure to abandon their faith and embrace Islam

Case ID : 30a8c3b | Location : Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 1 June, 2026

Case ID : 30a8c3b

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

1 June, 2026

Hindu minor girls complain of sexual misconduct and pressure to abandon their faith and embrace Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Victim says was brainwashed/groomed

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

Two Hindu minor girls from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, filed a complaint against Muslim men, accusing them of sexual exploitation, coercion, and pressure to convert to Islam. The incident came to light after some members of a Hindu organisation caught the main accused, Saif, red-handed in the hotel with the two minor girls. They confirmed that Saif had checked in using a fake Hindu name. Several packets of condoms were recovered from him. The members of the Hindu organisation informed the police, who reached the scene and detained the girls and the main accused. The girls filed a complaint, on the basis of which the police registered a case under the relevant legal provisions and arrested the accused. According to one of the minor girls, they had known Mohammad Saif and Wasid for around two months. She told the police that, due to financial issues, she had dropped out of school after class 8. She lived with her mother. On the night of 2 June, Saif contacted her and asked her to accompany him for a walk. The victim stated that she had initially refused, but agreed to go with him after he intimidated and pressured her. At around 9.30 pm, she went to Chai Studio, a restaurant near her house, where she met Saif and one of the girls. From there, they went to another cafe where Wasid and another individual named Anshit were already present. According to her statement, the five of them remained at the cafe until the early hours of the morning, during which the girls were made to consume beer. The five of them were there till 4 am, after which Wasid left. Afterwards, they visited a roadside eatery and later travelled to Rani Kamlapati Railway Station before being taken to a hotel in Saket Nagar. The victim stated that two rooms were booked at the hotel. Once inside, they were subjected to inappropriate physical advances and molestation. According to her statement, Anshit started behaving inappropriately with her friend. When she objected and sought help from Saif, he dismissed it and encouraged the conduct. A little later, even Saif attempted to touch the victim imappropriately and started making sexual advances at her. The girls stated that despite their repeated objections, the accused continued their actions. The victims further told police that this was not the first such incident. She stated that Saif had previously taken her to the same hotel and other hotels on multiple occasions, where he had established physical relations with her after intimidating and pressuring her. She also stated that during this period, he repeatedly pressured her to convert to Islam. According to her statement, Saif frequently praised Islam and encouraged her to abandon her existing faith and adopt Islamic practices. She said that he told her to embrace Islam, wear a burqa, and follow the religion practised by him. The complainant further stated that Wasid had also pressured her to convert to Islam and adopt the Muslim faith. She said that she eventually stopped communicating with Wasid because of his repeated insistence on religious conversion. The girls subsequently approached the police and narrated the entire sequence of events. Acting on their complaint, police registered a case against the accused and arrested them. Further investigation into the matter was initiated.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This incident has been added to the database under the primary category- Predatory proselytisation. Under this, the first subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Further, the tertiary categories selected are- Victim says brainwashed/groomed and Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 second 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 has been added to the tracker because it contains multiple indicators of religiously motivated targeting of Hindu girls through grooming, sexual exploitation, and pressure to abandon their faith. The available facts suggest that the accused did not merely pursue personal relationships with the victims but also sought to influence and alter their religious identity by encouraging them to adopt Islam and abandon their Hindu beliefs and practices. A significant religious marker in this case is the repeated pressure exerted on one of the girls to convert to Islam. According to the complaint, the accused regularly spoke about the superiority of their religion, urged her to embrace Islam, encouraged her to wear a burqa, and repeatedly asked her to adopt the Muslim faith. Another accused was also said to have pressured her to convert, leading her to eventually cut off contact with him. These actions indicate that religious conversion was not incidental to the relationship but formed an important component of the accused's interactions with the victim. The case also bears several characteristics commonly associated with grooming. The girls were befriended through repeated contact over a period of time, invited on outings, provided alcohol, taken to multiple locations, and gradually drawn into situations where their ability to refuse or leave was significantly reduced. Such conduct is particularly concerning because the victims were young girls who, by virtue of their age, had not yet attained full emotional and cognitive maturity. Young individuals are generally more susceptible to manipulation, emotional influence, peer pressure, and deceptive promises, making them especially vulnerable to predatory conduct by older or more experienced individuals. Another significant aspect of the case is the use of sexual exploitation alongside conversion pressure. It is important to understand here that the physical relations and sexual misconduct did not occur in isolation from the demands for religious conversion. Instead, the two appear alongside one another as part of the broader pattern of conduct. Basically, the sexual misconduct, intimidation, emotional influence, and religious persuasion were intertwined. In such circumstances, sexual exploitation often functions as a means of establishing control, creating dependency, weakening resistance, and increasing the victim's vulnerability to subsequent pressure. The repeated nature of the conduct, coupled with the continuing demands for conversion, establishes how sexual exploitation was weaponised to gain influence over the victim and facilitate the objective of religious conversion. The manner in which hotels were booked is also relevant. According to the complaint, the accused used Hindu names to make bookings. Such conduct raises questions about whether Hindu identities were being used strategically to avoid scrutiny or to make interactions appear less suspicious. While the full circumstances require investigation, the use of Hindu names in conjunction with the broader allegations of grooming, sexual exploitation, and conversion pressure is a factor that cannot be ignored. Viewed as a whole, the incident goes beyond allegations of sexual misconduct alone. The victims were Hindu girls who were subjected to a sustained pattern of grooming, sexual exploitation, intimidation, and repeated pressure to embrace Islam and abandon their existing faith. The religious identity of the victims was central to the conversion demands, and the conduct was directed towards replacing their Hindu beliefs with another religious identity. The combination of grooming, sexual exploitation, and conversion pressure demonstrates that the targeting was not merely personal in nature but carried a clear religious dimension. For these reasons, the case has been included in the tracker as a religiously motivated hate crime.