Minor Hindu student pressured to convert to Islam and undergo nikah by Muslim men; blackmailed with obscene videos upon refusal
Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh, India 
19 April, 2026
Case Summary
In Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh, a 14-year-old Hindu schoolgirl was lured into friendship, sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion and nikah by three Muslim men, identified as Mukhtar Qureshi, Monish and Raj Rain. Furthermore, when she refused, she was threatened with the circulation of her photographs on social media and the mass murder of her family members. According to the complaint filed by the girl's father, Jeetu Gupta, the accused, Mukhtar Qureshi, who was the school's bus driver, gradually gained the trust of the minor victim. Subsequently, he introduced her to another Muslim man named Raj Rain. Thereafter, both the accused raped the minor and secretly took objectionable photographs of her. These photographs were then used to blackmail her into complying with their demands. The complaint further stated that on April 20, 2026, the accused handed the girl an intoxicating substance and instructed her to mix it into the food prepared at her home. Later that night, she was called to an abandoned building near her residence. According to the FIR, all three accused were present there and attempted to rape the minor. The family also revealed that Raj Rain repeatedly pressured the girl to convert to Islam and undergo nikah with him, threatening to circulate the photographs on social media and kill her family if she refused. Following the family's complaint, the police registered a case on July 3, 2026, against the three accused, Mukhtar Qureshi, Raj Rain, and Monish, under multiple serious charges, including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, attempt to rape, criminal intimidation, and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act. During the investigation, the police arrested Mukhtar Qureshi and Raj Rain and sent them to judicial custody. However, the third accused, Monish, remained absconding at the time of reporting, with police continuing efforts to trace and arrest him.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected is: Predatory Proselytisation, with subcategory selected as: Harassment, threats and 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 sub-category selected here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor 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 other primary category selected is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes, with the subcategory selected as: Conversion of minor and Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to do nikah. 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. The other sub-category selected here is -Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other subcategory selected 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. In this case the minor victim was targeted by Muslim men because of her religious identity. The accused cultivated contact with the minor victim through deception, sexually harassed and blackmailed her, and then sought to compel her to convert to Islam and marry through nikah. It is 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. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor without her volition. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that exploits the child’s naivety and dependence. When a Hindu minor is subjected to intimidation, sexual exploitation, and coercive pressure aimed at changing her faith, the incident goes beyond an ordinary criminal offence and acquires a deliberately targeted religious dimension. In Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which was why she was pressured for religious conversion and nikah. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another was a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Often in such cases, sexual violence serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. The blackmail directed against the Hindu girl is also a critical religious marker in this case. The perpetrator created objectionable videos of the victim and repeatedly threatened to release them publicly. Such threats placed the victim under constant fear of humiliation, reputational damage, and social consequences. The significance of this conduct lies in the fact that blackmail became a means of extracting compliance. By holding the threat of public exposure over her, the perpetrator reduced her ability to freely reject his demands, leave the relationship, seek assistance, or resist the pressure to convert. The coercive power created by the videos effectively trapped the victim in a position where refusal carried severe personal consequences. In this context, blackmail was not merely a separate criminal act but a means of reinforcing religious pressure and maintaining control over a Hindu woman whose faith identity the perpetrator sought to alter. The use of fear, intimidation, and reputational threats to secure compliance demonstrates that the objective was not voluntary religious change but submission achieved through coercion. The girl's refusal to convert was followed by an escalation in the severity of the offences. She was called to an abandoned building where the accused attempted to sexually assault her. When she resisted, they threatened to kill her and circulate her photographs on social media if she continued to refuse conversion. The sequence of events proves violence and intimidation were used after the victim rejected the conversion demand. The assault and subsequent threats were intended to punish her refusal to abandon her faith and to force compliance through fear. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.
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
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
