Minor Hindu girl lured and abducted by Muslim man; forced to convert to Islam and undergo nikah

Case ID : 30a9acb | Location : Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 29 July, 2026

Case ID : 30a9acb

Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, India

29 July, 2026

Minor Hindu girl lured and abducted by Muslim man; forced to convert to Islam and undergo nikah

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

A Hindu minor girl from the Nagra area of Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh, was lured and abducted by a Muslim man identified as Shabbir. He then took her to a mosque in Dihwa, where he forced her to convert to Islam and undergo a nikah ceremony, and later took her to Delhi. According to the complaint lodged by the girl's family at Nagra Police Station, the accused took the minor to the mosque, where the nikah was performed, and converted her to Islam. He then moved her to Delhi. The girl returned home on 30 July 2026 and informed her family about the incident, prompting them to approach the Nagra Police Station to narrate the sequence of events. Based on her statement, police registered an FIR under legal provisions and arrested the accused, Shabbir. The victim's statement was recorded, and she was sent for a medical examination as part of the investigation. The police also initiated an investigation into the religious conversion aspect of the case and stated that appropriate legal action would be taken based on the inquiry's findings. The incident led to tension in the locality while the investigation remained ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor. 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 sub-category selected here 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 in this case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes, with the subcategory selected as: Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor. 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. The tertiary category selected in this case is: 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. This case involves a Hindu minor girl being specifically targeted because of her religious identity. She was taken away, subjected to a nikah ceremony, and pressured toward a change in religious identity. If a person is deliberately selected because she belongs to the Hindu faith and is then subjected to actions intended to separate her from the Hindu religious and cultural identity, it represents not only an individual crime but also an attack on the rights of a Hindu community to preserve its faith and identity. 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. 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. Furthermore, the act of taking a Hindu girl to a mosque for a nikah ceremony is significant from this viewpoint because marriage in Hindu society is closely connected with family, religious traditions, and personal identity. An attempt to conduct a marriage outside Hindu customs without consent, especially involving a minor, is an act to remove the girl from her religious environment. The use of deception, pressure, or coercion based on religious differences is seen as an act of hostility towards Hindu identity rather than merely a private dispute. This case of forced conversion before marriage arises because the girl was taken for a nikah ceremony and that religious conversion was involved or intended as part of the process. If a person is pressured, deceived, threatened, or manipulated into changing their religion as a precondition for marriage, it is an attack on their freedom of religious choice. Conversion before marriage becomes coercive when the religious change is not a genuinely voluntary decision but is connected to pressure, emotional manipulation, fear, confinement, or dependency. Marriage should be between adults, based on free consent, and a person's faith should not be changed through force or undue influence. In this case, the girl was taken to a mosque where a nikah was performed is an indication that her religious identity may have been altered or challenged without the informed consent of her family or herself. Since the girl is a minor, she was in a particularly vulnerable position and any decision regarding marriage or religious conversion would require careful legal scrutiny. 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. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. 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. Disclaimer: The exact date of the incident was not disclosed in the available reports. For the purpose of this case, the incident date has been taken as 30 July 2026 based on the timeline mentioned in news reports, where the girl was brought back home on Thursday evening, and the complaint was subsequently filed.