Minor Hindu girl sexually exploited for six years, abducted for forced conversion and nikah by Muslim man and his associates

Case ID : 30a9c3d | Location : Delhi, Delhi, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 5 August, 2020

Case ID : 30a9c3d

Delhi, Delhi, India

5 August, 2020

Minor Hindu girl sexually exploited for six years, abducted for forced conversion and nikah by Muslim man and his associates

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Family claims grooming

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Conversion of minor

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

An 11-year-old Hindu girl from the Sunlight Colony area of South Delhi was abducted by a Muslim man named Safiq and his associates. She was subjected to rape and sexual exploitation for approximately six years. The accused also attempted to forcibly convert her to Islam and marry her according to Islamic customs (nikah). As per media reports, the incident came to light when the victim was 17 years old, after she had been subjected to exploitation for approximately six years. Safiq, originally a resident of Sathini village in the Gorai area of Aligarh, resided in the same Delhi neighbourhood as the victim. The complaint stated that Safiq abducted the minor from her home with the intention of marrying her and converting her to Islam. The victim struggled with mental health issues and had previously been placed at a rehabilitation and child reform centre in Kalkaji in 2023. One report stated that her mental state was not good and that she spoke incoherently. The victim's brother, who resided in the Sunlight Colony police station area of South Delhi, filed a formal complaint at Gorai police station. The First Information Report stated that Safiq took the minor to Aligarh with the intention of converting her to Islam and forcing her into marriage. The complainant stated that the accused and his associates operated a conversion syndicate that specifically targeted Hindu girls and brainwashed them into converting to Islam and marrying Muslim men. The complaint also described Safiq as having a criminal nature and stated that the accused had threatened people in the past. The complaint further stated that Safiq acted with his father, Kotwal, son of Suleman; his mother, Amna, wife of Kotwal; cleric Maulvi Mohammad Tayyaf, son of Abdul Razzaq, who officiated at the Sathini Mosque and was originally from Jave in the Bhawanipur police station area of Purnia district, Bihar, with a present address in Gorai; and Bano, wife of Nizam, who arranged the marriage at her house. The accused prepared a forged Aadhaar card in the victim's name along with other forged documents. The complaint stated that the group was collectively involved in converting Hindu girls to Islam and marrying them according to Islamic customs. The accused also threatened to kill the victim's family when they objected. Based on the complaint, the police registered a First Information Report under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The police arrested five accused: Safiq, his father Kotwal, his mother Amna, Maulvi Mohammad Tayyaf, and Bano. All five accused were arrested from the Gorai police station area and sent to jail. The police also recovered a forged Aadhaar card prepared in the victim's name from the possession of the accused. The recovered document was taken up for investigation to determine its intended use and the role of those involved in preparing it. According to Gorai police station in-charge Jitendra Kumar Dhama, a case was registered in the matter, and all five accused were arrested and sent to jail. Iglas Circle Officer Kamlesh Kumar stated that Safiq lured the minor into converting her religion, married her and raped her. He further stated that Safiq threatened the victim's family with dire consequences and death if they resisted. Police stated that legal action was being taken against all the accused and that further action would follow based on facts emerging during the investigation. One news report stated that the police arrived while preparations for the marriage were underway, stopped the ceremony and arrested the entire group. The police remanded all five accused to judicial custody. Police stated that every aspect of the matter was being thoroughly investigated.

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 here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category being - Conversion of minor, Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Family claims grooming & 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 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. This case was a clear example of a religiously motivated crime because a minor Hindu girl was subjected to rape for approximately six years and was abducted for the purpose of forced conversion and nikah by a Muslim man and his associates. The sequence of sexual exploitation, abduction, forced conversion and attempted marriage according to Islamic customs demonstrated that the victim's Hindu religious identity was central to the nature of the abuse. Taken together, these acts constituted a clear case of religiously driven hate crime rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. The victim being a minor made the case significantly more severe because, by virtue of her age, the element of meaningful consent and a genuine, informed change of religious conscience was absent ab initio. A minor, owing to her young age and lack of maturity, is particularly vulnerable to manipulation, coercion and exploitation. She could not have been expected to fully comprehend the long-term ramifications of being forcibly separated from her faith and subjected to religious conversion. Nor could a child be expected to possess an adult understanding of sexual relations and their consequences. The fact that the victim was subjected to sexual exploitation over approximately six years while she remained a minor, followed by attempts to forcibly convert her and marry her according to Islamic customs, made the religious dimension of the crime particularly clear. The perpetrator exploited the vulnerability of a minor Hindu girl while simultaneously seeking to strip her of her religious identity, making the case a clear instance of religiously driven hate crime. The prolonged sexual exploitation and assault of the victim further demonstrated the nature and extent of the targeting. The fact that forced conversion formed the ultimate objective of the ordeal indicated that the sexual exploitation, violence and coercion preceding it could not be viewed in isolation from the religious objective pursued against the victim. The victim was first isolated, exploited and subjected to prolonged sexual violence and was subsequently subjected to efforts to force her into another religion. This sequence indicated that her vulnerability was exploited to weaken her resistance and make her more susceptible to the perpetrator's demands, including religious conversion. The sexual violence therefore formed part of a broader pattern of coercion directed at a Hindu minor and constituted religiously driven sexual violence rooted in hostility towards her Hindu identity. The act of abducting the victim from her home for the purpose of forced conversion further demonstrated the religiously motivated nature of the crime. She was removed from the safety of her home, family and Hindu social environment and taken into an environment in which she was subjected to coercion and efforts to impose another religion upon her. The abduction of a minor Hindu girl for the purpose of forcibly altering her religious identity amounted to a direct violation of her personal liberty, security and religious autonomy. Her removal from her family and community was not merely an act of physical confinement but formed part of the wider process through which the perpetrators sought to isolate her and subject her to religious coercion, making the abduction a clear component of the religiously driven hate crime. The attempt to forcibly convert the victim to Islam demonstrated a direct assault on her religious identity and autonomy. The victim was a minor Hindu girl who was taken away from her family and placed in circumstances where she was subjected to coercion to abandon her ancestral faith and adopt Islam. Such a forced conversion could not constitute a genuine or voluntary change of religious conscience, particularly given her age, vulnerability and the coercive circumstances in which it was being pursued. It represented an attempt to strip the victim of her Hindu identity and impose a different religious identity upon her against her will. By seeking to compel her to abandon Hinduism, the perpetrator treated her existing faith as something that could be discarded at will and demonstrated a complete disregard for her religious identity, her right to retain her faith and the significance of Hinduism to her identity. The attempt to forcibly replace her Hindu identity with an Islamic identity therefore demonstrated not merely an exercise of personal control but a profound disregard for the victim's faith and religious autonomy, reflecting deep-seated religious intolerance and disdain towards Hinduism and towards the victim for being a Hindu. The fact that conversion was pursued alongside prolonged sexual exploitation, abduction and threats further demonstrated that religion was not incidental to the abuse but formed part of the objective being imposed upon the victim. The perpetrators therefore sought not merely to exercise control over a vulnerable minor but to exercise religious control over her by compelling her to renounce Hinduism and accept Islam. This made the forced conversion a clear component of the religiously motivated crime. The attempt to force the victim into nikah further demonstrated the depth of the religious coercion. Under the traditional Islamic legal position, a Muslim man could not marry a Hindu woman while she remained Hindu; therefore, in the circumstances of this case, the demand that the Hindu minor convert to Islam and simultaneously undergo nikah demonstrated that the proposed marriage was intrinsically linked to the intended conversion. The conversion was thus not merely being sought as an isolated religious act but as a prerequisite for incorporating the victim into the proposed Muslim marriage and permanently institutionalising the forced abandonment of her Hindu identity. The use of nikah in conjunction with forced conversion transformed the proposed marriage into an instrument of religious domination, through which the victim was to be compelled to relinquish her faith, assume another religious identity and enter a marriage on terms imposed by the perpetrators. The fact that a minor Hindu girl was being pressured both to abandon Hinduism and to marry a Muslim man according to Islamic customs demonstrated that the perpetrators sought to exercise control over her precisely by targeting her existing religious identity. The proposed nikah therefore reinforced the coercive conversion objective and represented a further manifestation of religious hostility towards the victim as a Hindu, making it a clear element of the religiously driven hate crime. The reports further indicated that the accused and his associates, including members of his family and a Maulvi, were involved in a broader conversion network that targeted Hindu girls with the objective of converting them to Islam and marrying them to Muslim men. This indicated a pattern extending beyond a single instance of forced conversion and sexual exploitation. The reported involvement of multiple individuals in targeting Hindu girls, facilitating conversion and arranging marriages demonstrated an organised pattern in which Hindu girls were specifically selected because of their religious identity and subjected to efforts to strip them of that identity. The existence of such a pattern strengthened the assessment that the victim's Hindu identity was a defining factor in the conduct directed against her and that the case represented more than an isolated incident of sexual violence or forced conversion. It demonstrated a systematic pattern of targeting Hindu girls for their religious identity, making the case a clear instance of a hate crime. Since this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported by the media. This incident came to light in media reports on 6 August 2026. However, as per the reports, the victim's ordeal began approximately six years earlier. Hence, 6 August 2020 has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. A total of five perpetrators were identified in the source reports, namely Safiq, his father Kotwal, his mother Amna, Maulvi Mohammad Tayyaf and Bano, who were arrested by the police in connection with the case. Hence, the perpetrator count has been recorded as five for documentation purposes.