Hindu woman lured and offered ₹2 lakh for religious conversion by Muslim cleric; threatened upon refusing to convert

Case ID : 30a9c8a | Location : Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 8 January, 2026

Case ID : 30a9c8a

Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India

8 January, 2026

Hindu woman lured and offered ₹2 lakh for religious conversion by Muslim cleric; threatened upon refusing to convert

Predatory Proselytisation

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Bahraich district, Uttar Pradesh, a 45-year-old Hindu woman was lured and offered ₹2 lakhs for religious conversion by a Muslim faith healer, identified as Noor Mohammad alias Puttan Baba. The accused pressured her to convert under the pretext of spiritual healing and threatened her when she resisted. The Hindu woman, Rama Devi, wife of Nankau, was a resident of Tulsipur village under the Ramgaon police station area in Bahraich district. In her complaint, she stated that she and her children had been suffering from prolonged illness for a long time and that she sought treatment from several places without significant relief. Local people advised her to undergo jhaad-phoonk (faith healing), which led her to the accused, Noor Mohammad alias Puttan Baba, who was living in Shanti Nagar, Begampur Majra, under the Ramgaon police station jurisdiction. On January 9, 2026, Noor Mohammad called her and asked her to come to meet him. He told her that he would take her to a prominent maulana associated with Dargah Sharif in Bahraich for spiritual healing. She stated that he took her on a motorcycle and, instead of taking her to the dargah, took her to an isolated location near Turaini Rajjab village on the Bahraich–Janhuna road. During this time, the accused told her that she would recover from her illness only if she converted to Islam. He offered her ₹2 lakhs to accept Islam and pressured her repeatedly to change her religion. When she refused, he threatened her with serious consequences and abandoned her there before leaving. Subsequently, Rama Devi approached Dargah police station on January 10, 2026 and submitted a written complaint naming Noor Mohammad alias Puttan Baba. However, she said that no FIR was registered. She subsequently filed a complaint through the Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS) portal on February 24, 2026, and also sent a written complaint to the Superintendent of Police (SP), Bahraich, by registered post on February 26, 2026. Despite these complaints, no action was taken by the police. Following this, the woman approached the court in March 2026. The court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Bahraich, directed the police to register a case and conduct an investigation. Acting on the court’s order, Dargah Sharif police registered an FIR on August 6 under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2021, and Section 351(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) relating to criminal intimidation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The selected primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected is: Conversion, attempts to convert by inducement. 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. 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. In this case, a Hindu woman was targeted for religious conversion by a Muslim cleric. This incident embodies targeting a vulnerable Hindu woman with illness, weaponising her suffering to erode her faith. The perpetrator's motive wasn't just conversion but cultural annihilation, snuffing out Hindu identity through coercion. By preying on a vulnerable Hindu woman’s desperation caused by prolonged illness, the perpetrator exploited her circumstances in an attempt to induce her to convert to Islam. This is an attack on the woman’s freedom of conscience and her right to remain within her faith, which is an assault on both personal dignity and religious identity. The use of vulnerability, illness, and dependence on a faith healer makes the act particularly exploitative. The accused offered her ₹2 lakhs and claimed that converting to Islam would cure her illness. Offering incentives or making false promises, especially when directed at vulnerable individuals in need, shows that these incentives are not acts of kindness or charity. Instead, they are calculated moves to exploit vulnerable Hindus because of religion. By providing inducements or promising healing in exchange for conversion, the accused was effectively blackmailing the Hindu woman who was in desperate for assistance or hope. This form of coercion strips people of their agency and dignity and results in coerced conversions. These are not random or isolated incidents, but rather cases deeply rooted in religious animosity towards Hindu victims. The threat was significant to the religious nature of the incident because it followed the woman’s explicit refusal to convert to Islam. This demonstrated that coercion was not limited to the initial offer of money or the promise of spiritual healing, but extended to intimidation when she exercised her right to retain her Hindu faith. The sequence of conversion pressure followed by a threat on refusal underscored that intimidation was used as a means of influencing her religious choice, making the incident relevant as a form of coercive religious targeting rather than merely a dispute arising from a failed healing attempt. If a person is targeted specifically because she is Hindu and is pressured to abandon her religion, the incident is religiously targeted victimisation. The conduct was directed at changing the religious identity of a Hindu woman rather than involving an ordinary financial or interpersonal dispute. Overall, the incident demonstrated religiously targeted coercion because the pressure was directed specifically at changing a Hindu woman's religious identity to Islam. The use of her illness to create dependence, followed by a financial inducement and intimidation when she refused, showed an escalation from persuasion to coercion. The threat was therefore directly connected to her exercise of religious choice and reinforced the broader concern that vulnerable individuals may be subjected to pressure aimed at compelling them to abandon their faith.