Minor Hindu hostel students taken to church, punished for refusing Christian prayers and offered inducements for religious conversion in Telangana

Case ID : 30a9943 | Location : Nagar Karnul, Telangana, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 25 July, 2026

Case ID : 30a9943

Nagar Karnul, Telangana, India

25 July, 2026

Minor Hindu hostel students taken to church, punished for refusing Christian prayers and offered inducements for religious conversion in Telangana

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

In Kalwakurthy, Nagarkurnool district, Telangana, minor Hindu hostel students residing at Nirmala Vidyalayam were forcibly taken to a church every Sunday. There, they were subjected to religious indoctrination and pressured to convert to Christianity. During a confrontation over the practice, the students stated that they were beaten and punished for refusing to attend church prayers. Children from vulnerable sections residing in the hostel were also offered assistance and other inducements to influence them towards religious conversion. When the incident came to public attention, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) visited the school and confronted the management over the weekly church visits and the supposed 'counselling' of the minor Hindu hostel students. A complaint was submitted at Kalwakurthy Police Station seeking an investigation into the school's functioning, legal action against those responsible, and measures to prevent religious conversion activities. In response to the complaint, the school management denied engaging in religious conversion and claimed that the minor Hindu hostel students were taken to church only to learn good values and remain under supervision. According to the management, the students otherwise wandered outside the hostel and occasionally got into fights. It further stated that taking the students to church ensured their safety, as they remained with teachers while hostel staff were unavailable. Following the complaint, police initiated a preliminary inquiry into the church visits involving the minor Hindu hostel students. During the inquiry, Sub-Inspector Kurumurthy stated that around 20 Hindu students resided in the hostel and that the management had been taking them to church every Sunday so that no student would be left behind and no untoward incident would occur. Police directed the management to depute hostel staff on Sundays instead of routinely taking the students to church. They further instructed that only students who wished to attend church should be taken. No case had been registered at the time of writing this report, and the inquiry 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. Within this, the tertiary categories selected are: Conversion of Minor and Pattern of targeting Hindus. 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 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 other subcategory selected is: Conversion/attempts to convert by inducements. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. This case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime because it involved the use of institutional authority to subject minor Hindu students to religious influence, coercion, and attempts at conversion. The victims in this case were minors residing in a school hostel, placing them in a position of heightened vulnerability and dependence on the institution responsible for their care. Minors, due to their young age, limited maturity, and reliance on adults in positions of authority, are particularly susceptible to manipulation and psychological influence. Their ability to fully understand the implications of changing their religious beliefs and exercise independent consent regarding matters of faith is limited. By exposing these children to repeated Christian prayers and religious teachings, punishing them for refusing participation, and offering assistance and inducements to influence them towards conversion, the perpetrators exploited this vulnerability. The fact that the victims were minor Hindu students made the predatory intent behind the conduct more pronounced, as the actions targeted children who were least capable of resisting sustained religious pressure and external influence. The case involved subtle religious indoctrination through the repeated and compulsory exposure of Hindu students to Christian religious practices. Educational institutions hold a position of trust, with parents entrusting them with the responsibility of providing education, safety, and care for their children. The use of this authority to take students to a church every Sunday and make them participate in religious prayers fundamentally altered the nature of that responsibility. Instead of remaining a neutral environment focused on education and welfare, the institution became a means through which religious teachings and practices of another faith were introduced and reinforced. The repeated nature of these visits, combined with the authority exercised by the institution over the children's daily lives, created an environment where religious influence was imposed rather than freely chosen. The coercive nature of the conduct became evident when the students were punished for refusing to attend church prayers. Freedom of religion includes the right to follow one's own faith as well as the right to decline participation in religious practices of another faith. However, in this case, the students faced adverse consequences for exercising that choice. Punishing children for refusing to participate in religious activities of the Christian faith created an atmosphere of fear and pressure, where compliance was secured through intimidation rather than personal conviction. Such actions amounted to religious harassment and coercion, as the students' refusal to engage in practices contrary to their own beliefs was met with punishment. The case further involved the use of assistance and other inducements to influence children from vulnerable sections towards religious conversion. When material support or benefits are offered to children who are dependent on institutional care, such measures create conditions where religious choices are influenced by external incentives rather than genuine belief or personal conviction. Exploiting social and economic vulnerability to encourage a change of faith undermines the principle of free conscience, particularly when directed at minors who lack the maturity and independence required to make such significant decisions. The use of inducements, alongside repeated religious exposure and coercive measures, demonstrated an attempt to influence the religious identity of vulnerable children through unequal circumstances. The fact that multiple minor Hindu students were subjected to this practice over several Sundays further demonstrates that the incident was not an isolated interaction but a repeated pattern of targeting vulnerable Hindu children. The continued practice of taking several students to church for prayers and religious activities showed a sustained effort to influence their religious beliefs over time. The repeated nature of the conduct, combined with the use of institutional authority over the students, indicates a systematic pattern rather than a one-time occurrence. Targeting multiple Hindu students in a dependent environment reinforced the discriminatory nature of the actions and highlighted that the conduct was directed at their religious identity. The combination of institutional authority, the repeated exposure of minor Hindu students to religious practices of another faith, punishment for refusing participation, and inducements aimed at influencing conversion transformed the conduct from ordinary religious interaction into coercive religious proselytisation. The actions targeted the students' religious identity and interfered with their ability to freely retain and practise their own faith. For these reasons, the incident satisfies the Hinduphobia Tracker's classification of a religiously motivated hate crime, as it involved the exploitation of vulnerable Hindu minors through religious indoctrination, coercion, and attempts to influence their religious identity. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when a crime occurs rather than when it is reported by the media. However, in this case, the available media reports do not specify the first date on which the acts involving the minor Hindu students began. Therefore, the date on which the incident was reported in the media, 26 July 2026, has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.