Minor Hindu girl abducted, raped and pressured to Islam by Muslim men in Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30a9f45 | Location : Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 1 August, 2026

Case ID : 30a9f45

Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India

1 August, 2026

Minor Hindu girl abducted, raped and pressured to Islam by Muslim men in Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was abducted, raped and pressured to convert to Islam by a group of Muslim men. According to reports, the International Hindu Council and the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal submitted memoranda to the Superintendent of Police and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, demanding strict action in a case involving the rape, attempted kidnapping and attempted conversion of a minor Hindu girl. The organisations revealed that Manawar Ali, Gabbar alias Ismail Ali and other associates had lured the minor Hindu using sorcery, amulets and false inducements, before raping her. They further stated that the perpetrators had blackmailed the girl using obscene videos, threatened to kill her and pressured her to convert to Islam. The International Hindu Council and the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal also demanded strict punishment for those found responsible. In the memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister, they sought compensation of ₹50 lakh for the victim's family and stated that, following conviction, the perpetrators should receive the maximum punishment permissible under law. The organisations warned that failure to take prompt and satisfactory action would lead them to organise peaceful democratic protests and mass movements across Maharajganj district.

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. This case was documented as a religiously motivated hate crime because the minor Hindu girl was subjected to sexual exploitation, threats, coercion and pressure to change her religious identity by Muslim men. The use of manipulation and threats, combined with pressure towards conversion to Islam, demonstrated that the objective extended beyond the commission of an ordinary sexual or abduction-related offence and involved an attempt to alter the victim's religious 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. The pressure to convert to Islam also distinguished the case from an offence that was purely personal or sexual in nature. 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. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. The use of sorcery, amulets, inducements, blackmail involving obscene material and threats of death further demonstrated the unequal position in which the victim was placed. These methods undermined any possibility of treating the purported change of religious identity as a genuinely free and informed choice. The religious element therefore could not be separated from the coercive circumstances in which the victim was targeted. Often in such cases, sexual violence, threats or abduction 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. 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 incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim was abducted. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media, 2 August 2026. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker acknowledges that multiple perpetrators were involved in the incident; however, only two individuals, Manawar Ali and Gabbar alias Ismail Ali, were explicitly identified in the available reports. Accordingly, the perpetrator count has been recorded as 2.