Hindu woman pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim neighbours; family brutally assaulted over her return to Hinduism

Case ID : 30a9c6e | Location : Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 6 August, 2018

Case ID : 30a9c6e

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

6 August, 2018

Hindu woman pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim neighbours; family brutally assaulted over her return to Hinduism

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In the Machhariya area under Naubasta police station in Kanpur, a Hindu woman named Hina faced sustained harassment and pressure to convert from her Muslim neighbours, following her return to Hinduism after her marriage. The victim's family stated that their elder daughter, Hina, who was a Muslim, had married a man from Awas Vikas in 2018. Following her marriage, she abandoned Islam and returned to Hinduism. They said that subsequently, some Muslim neighbours began pressuring her to convert back to Islam and subjected the family to threats and harassment over her decision. The victim's father, Rashid Ahmed, stated that the family was repeatedly threatened over her decision and that other members of the family were also targeted during the dispute. On 5 September 2021, the family’s house was attacked and pelted with stones. During the attack, Hina’s sister Gulfshan sustained serious injuries. She received treatment for around 15 days but later passed away. The family stated that they had filed a complaint with the police following the incident but no effective action was taken at that time. They further stated that the pressure and hostility from the neighbours continued even after Gulfshan's death. On 16 October 2022, the family stated that their son Kasan was assaulted and suffered a fracture to his arm. After receiving no assistance from the local police, the family approached the court, following which a case was registered on the court’s orders. On 4 August 2026, Kasan was again assaulted by neighbours and their associates, while relatives who attempted to intervene were also beaten. Following the incident, the family approached the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South Kanpur, seeking protection, an impartial investigation and action against those responsible. DCP South Deependra Nath Chaudhary confirmed that the complaint had been received and ordered an investigation. He stated that further legal action would be taken based on the facts established during the investigation.

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 - 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 incident constituted a religiously motivated hate crime because the violence originated from Hina's return to Hinduism and the subsequent hostility surrounding her change in religious identity. The hostility manifested as a sustained campaign of intimidation by her Muslim neighbours who refused to tolerate her exercise of religious freedom. The transition from one religious identity to another acted as the core catalyst, transforming ordinary residential proximity into a site of ideological friction and targeted persecution. 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. A person's decision to change or adopt a faith is a matter of individual religious liberty, and attempts to compel her to reverse that decision because of hostility towards her chosen religion constitute religious coercion. In this context, pressuring Hina to abandon Hinduism and return to Islam reflected an attempt to impose religious conformity and deny her the freedom to practise the faith she had chosen. Such conduct went beyond a personal disagreement or difference of opinion, as the pressure was centred specifically on her religious identity and her decision to follow Hinduism, giving the incident a clear religious dimension. The systematic escalation of physical assaults, culminating in fatal consequences and severe bodily harm to other family members, demonstrated a clear intent to penalise adherence to Hindu identity. The perpetrators sought to enforce religious conformity through coercive pressure and violent retaliation. This pattern of conduct reflected an underlying animus directed at the religious choice made by Hina, treating her conversion to Hinduism as a provocation that warranted punishment. The repeated attacks on Hina’s family demonstrated that the violence was used as a means of coercing her to abandon Hinduism and return to Islam. Rather than limiting the dispute to opposition to her religious choice, the perpetrators targeted and assaulted her family members, creating fear and pressure around her decision to follow Hinduism. The pattern revealed that violence against her relatives was intended to isolate Hina and compel her to submit to the demand for religious conformity. . In that sense, the violence functioned as punishment and intimidation connected to Hina's religious decision, rather than being unrelated interpersonal violence. The attacks therefore reflected hostility towards Hina’s return to Hinduism and an attempt to use intimidation and violence against her family to force her to revert to Islam. Such coercive actions also have a wider deterrent effect beyond the immediate victim. Such violence sends a message to others within the community that abandoning Islam or adopting another faith could expose them to intimidation, retaliation or social and physical consequences. In this context, violence directed at a person who had left Islam could function not only as punishment for an individual religious choice but also as a warning to others who might contemplate making a similar choice. This reinforces the coercive nature of the conduct by seeking to discourage religious dissent and enforce conformity through fear rather than voluntary belief. Taken together, the conduct demonstrated a pattern of religiously motivated coercion in which Hina’s decision to follow Hinduism was met with pressure to return to Islam and, when that pressure was resisted, violence and intimidation involving her family. The targeting of her family served to create fear and compel compliance, while the persistence of the reported hostility reinforced the message that departing from the expected religious identity could invite retaliation. The case therefore demonstrated how religious animosity can manifest not only through direct attacks on an individual’s faith, but also through coercion, intimidation and violence intended to restrict the individual’s freedom to choose and practise another religion. Disclaimer: The exact date when Hina converted to Hinduism was not specified in the available sources. However, the year of her conversion was indicated as 2018, following her marriage. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was reported or published. In this case, 7 August 2018 has been used as the indicative incident date, derived by assigning a date within the known year of conversion. This date has been recorded for documentation purposes only. Disclaimer: Although multiple family members were affected by the incidents, the available information indicates that they were Muslims. As the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents against Hindus by non-Hindu perpetrators, the victim count is recorded as 1, representing Hina, the only Hindu identified among those affected.