Minor Hindu girl lured into relationship, sexually assaulted and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man in Pune, Maharashtra
Pune, Maharashtra, India 
4 August, 2026
Case Summary
In Pune, Maharashtra, a 17-year-old Hindu girl was lured into a relationship, sexually assaulted and forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man named Mohammed Raees Mohammed Rafique Sheikh. According to a complaint filed by the victim’s father, the girl went missing after being taken away by the accused. The victim's father, who was originally from Uttar Pradesh and was residing in Ludhiana, approached the police after his daughter went missing. According to the police, the accused, who was also originally from Uttar Pradesh and was known to the girl, lured her away from her home and subsequently travelled with her from Uttar Pradesh to Pune. The Hinduphobia Tracker also contacted the police, who identified the accused as Mohammed Raees Mohammed Rafique Sheikh. The girl was subsequently traced and rescued in Pune. After she was recovered, it came to light that the accused had sexually abused the minor and had attempted to force her to convert to Islam. Following the recovery of the girl, a case was registered against the accused on August 5, 2026, at Fursungi Police Station in Pune under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and Maharashtra’s Freedom of Religion Act, 2026. The accused was subsequently arrested and placed in judicial custody.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories selected are: Rape and sexual assault/harassment and 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 at 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 the 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 proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The other primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories selected are: Rape and sexual assault/harassment and Conversion of a 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 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. This case is added to the tracker because it represents an anti-Hindu hate crime involving the targeting of a Hindu minor for religious conversion through exploitation and coercion. In this case, a Hindu minor girl was taken away by an adult Muslim man, sexually abused, and subjected to pressure to convert to Islam. Here, not merely the religious difference between the accused and the victim, but the victim's Hindu identity itself became the object of an attempted religious transformation through an abusive relationship. This gives the case a clear religious dimension beyond the underlying sexual offence. 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. Furthermore, any supposed consent given for a relationship or elopement is considered void under the POCSO Act. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate. The case is an example of Proselytisation through grooming. Grooming involves building emotional trust or dependence in a vulnerable person and subsequently using that relationship for exploitation or control. Here, the progression from a relationship with a minor to taking her away from her family, sexual exploitation, and pressure to change her religion is significant. The relationship was deliberately cultivated and manipulated to create dependence and facilitate conversion; In this case, the religious conversion attempt constitutes more than ordinary persuasion. It would represent a use of grooming as a pathway to religious conversion. The sexual abuse is relevant to the grooming analysis because it creates a particularly powerful form of dependency and vulnerability. 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 religious harm lies in the attempt to use the girl's vulnerability to detach her from her Hindu identity. Compelling or manipulating a child into abandoning her inherited faith is a violation of her religious autonomy and an abuse of her vulnerability when the pressure is exercised through coercion, deception, psychological manipulation, or sexual exploitation. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. 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 Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred, not when it was reported or published. As the exact date of the offences could not be independently established from the available reports, 5 August 2026, the date on which the FIR was registered, has been used as the incident date for documentation purposes only.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
