Hindu man pressured to convert to Christianity with promise of employment; assaulted and threatened after refusing in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh
Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India 
21 July, 2026
Case Summary
In Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man seeking employment was targeted for religious conversion to Christianity by a pastor. The perpetrator induced the victim to change his religion with the promise of securing him a good job. The victim, identified as Pawan Kumar, was a resident of Chedi Beni Sarila village in Hamirpur and had travelled to Jhansi in search of employment. Pawan came into contact with a pastor in the Babina area, who offered to help him secure a good job and took him to his residence, where a Christian prayer meeting was underway, and other individuals were also present. Pawan stated that prayers were conducted by placing hands on his head, holy water was sprinkled on him, and other Christian religious rituals were performed. The pastor later called him to a church, gave him books related to the propagation of Christianity, and instructed him to distribute them among his friends and relatives. Pawan stated that he had been deceitfully subjected to religious conversion under the pretext of employment. When his family came to know about it, they objected and expressed their anger. Pawan then refused to adopt Christianity and decided to leave. He stated that three Christian individuals, acting on the pastor's instructions, assaulted him and threatened to kill him. Fearing for his life, Pawan approached the Babina police and submitted a complaint. He also stated that money received from foreign countries was being used to facilitate religious conversion activities connected with the church. After the Babina police failed to take action for several days, Pawan approached the Senior Superintendent of Police on 22 July 2026 and submitted a written complaint along with video evidence. On 23 July 2026, the then Senior Superintendent of Police, B. B. G. T. S. Murthy, directed Superintendent of Police (City) Preeti Singh to investigate the matter. Pawan was called to record his statement on 1 August 2026 but, according to one account in the report, did not appear because of concerns for his safety. The report, however, also stated elsewhere that he had recorded his statement. Following this, the police did not complete the investigation, and the matter was effectively closed in the file. Even after around a month, no First Information Report had been registered against the four accused, including the pastor. Station House Officer Rahul Rathore stated that the police had been unable to establish contact with Pawan and were continuing their attempts to reach him. The investigation into the matter therefore remained incomplete despite the complaint involving religious conversion, assault and death threats.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected for this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected for this case is: Conversion/attempts to convert by inducements. Predatory Proselytisation is not limited to threats, 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 to change 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: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category selected is: 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 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 in discriminatory grounds, which have the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his rights 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 documented cases, 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. The second primary category selected is: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory selected is: Attacked for refusal to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, the victim refuses to succumb to the pressure/threats. Once the victim refuses, the perpetrator proceeds to attack/assault the victim owing to his/her refusal to convert. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The violence then is another hate crime driven by the victim’s refusal to abandon his professed faith, Hinduism, and convert to the religion of a non-Hindu perpetrator. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing violence towards the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case constituted a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime, as a Hindu youth was targeted for conversion to Christianity through inducement, manipulation, coercion, threats and assault. The sequence of events demonstrated that the victim's Hindu identity was central to the conduct directed against him. He was not merely approached with a discussion about religious beliefs; instead, he was offered the prospect of employment, introduced to Christian religious practices and teachings, instructed to participate in activities connected with the propagation of Christianity, and subsequently subjected to threats and assault when he refused to change his faith. Taken together, these acts demonstrated religious hostility towards the victim's continued adherence to Hinduism and an attempt to impose Christianity upon him through inducement and coercion. Firstly, it was significant that the victim was approached when he was seeking employment and was offered the prospect of a good job as an inducement to convert to Christianity. Employment represented a material need for the victim, and the promise of securing him a job was therefore used as a means of influencing his religious choices. Conversion undertaken as a result of external inducement, pressure or coercion, rather than an individual's independent and voluntary religious conviction, interferes with the victim's religious and personal autonomy. In this case, the inducement sought to make the victim abandon his Hindu faith in exchange for a promised material benefit. Such conduct treated his existing religious identity as something to be removed and replaced with Christianity, demonstrating a religiously motivated attempt to impose another faith upon a Hindu individual. This predatory targeting of a person on the basis of his Hindu identity, combined with the use of inducement to secure his conversion, constituted a manifestation of religious hostility and religious animosity. The manner in which the victim was subsequently taken to a prayer meeting and subjected to Christian religious practices further demonstrated a pattern of manipulation and religious indoctrination. Hands were placed on his head during prayers, holy water was sprinkled on him, and other Christian religious rituals were performed. He was later called to a church, provided with books connected with the propagation of Christianity and instructed to distribute them among his friends and relatives. These actions went beyond a casual interaction and formed a sustained process of introducing the victim to Christian religious practices, teachings and institutions while attempting to influence his religious beliefs. The repeated exposure to religious rituals, teachings and places of worship, coupled with instructions to participate in the propagation of Christianity, demonstrated an attempt to manipulate and indoctrinate the victim. Where such techniques are used alongside inducement and pressure to make a Hindu abandon his faith, the conduct amounts to coercive proselytisation rooted in religious hostility towards the victim's existing religious identity. Most significantly, when the victim refused to convert to Christianity and attempted to leave, he was subjected to assault and death threats by three individuals acting on the pastor's instructions. Assaulting and threatening a person because he refused to change his faith demonstrated a willingness to escalate coercion into physical violence in order to punish his refusal and compel compliance. The assault and threats were therefore not isolated from the attempted conversion but formed part of the same pattern of inducement, manipulation, coercion and intimidation. This demonstrated that the perpetrators were prepared to use increasingly severe means to overcome the victim's resistance and force him to abandon his Hindu identity. The combination of predatory targeting, inducement, brainwashing, coercion, threats and assault showed the extent of the religious hostility directed at the victim for refusing to convert to Christianity. Such instances of targeted proselytisation activities stem from inherent doctrinal hostility towards the victim's professed faith, since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to their faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert, making it a religiously motivated crime against the Hindu victim. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records an incident date based on when the victim’s ordeal begins rather than when the case comes to public attention. However, the exact date on which the conversion attempt, assault, and threats began was not specified. Therefore, 22 July 2026, the date on which Pawan Kumar approached the SSP and submitted his complaint, has been taken as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. After this, the victim remained away and became difficult to contact due to concerns for his personal safety.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
