Hindu minor girl abducted, pressured to convert to Islam and undergo nikah by Muslim man in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
6 September, 2026
Case Summary
In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old Hindu minor girl was abducted by a Muslim man, Ali Abbas, who pressured her to convert to Islam and undergo nikah. Notably, the Hinduphobia Tracker team contacted the Para Police station, which confirmed that the victim was a Hindu girl. According to a complaint filed by the victim's brother, the accused, Ali Abbas, a resident of Thakurganj, had been harassing the minor Hindu girl by repeatedly sending messages to her mobile phone. A few days before her abduction, the accused had taken the victim to his residence, where she was held captive and subjected to an attempt at forced religious conversion and nikah. During that time, her family had managed to rescue her and bring her back home. On 7 September 2026, however, the girl went missing again from the New Rajajipuram area under Para police station. Her brother suspected that Ali Abbas had abducted her again with the assistance of his relatives and associates. When the family questioned him about the victim's whereabouts, he gave them death threats and warned them of his political connections. The brother subsequently approached the Para police, expressing concern for the minor's safety and seeking her immediate recovery. Police registered a case against Ali Abbas, his sister Hina, his maternal aunt and uncle, and two associates identified as Jaimi and Wasim, and initiated a search for the minor while investigating the accusations made in the complaint.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category: Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the 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 other sub-category selected here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor and Family claims grooming. 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 second primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to do nikah. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. This case was classified as a religiously motivated hate crime because the conduct by the Muslim accused specifically targeted the religious identity of a Hindu minor. The incident was not limited to harassment, abduction or an attempt to compel the girl into marriage. A central part of the conduct was the attempt to force her to change her religion and enter into a nikah. The attempt to alter the religious affiliation of a Hindu child against her will gave the incident a distinct religious character and established a direct connection between the coercive conduct and the victim’s Hindu identity. The attempt to abduct the minor girl and force her into religious conversion represented a direct interference with her religious identity. The accused had taken her to his home, where an attempt was made to convert her and conduct a nikah. Such conduct went beyond ordinary harassment because it sought to alter the victim’s religious affiliation while simultaneously placing her under pressure to enter into a marriage. The combination of religious conversion and nikah demonstrated that the objective was not merely to establish contact with the girl but to place her in a situation where her existing Hindu identity could be displaced and replaced with another religious identity. The objective was not simply to establish a relationship with the girl while leaving her religious identity untouched. Instead, the conduct included an attempt to replace her Hindu religious identity with Islam as part of the proposed nikah. 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 threats against the victim’s family were also relevant to the religious dimension because they potentially served to prevent resistance to the conduct directed at the minor. When threats are made against relatives who attempt to intervene, they can function as an additional mechanism of coercion, making it more difficult for the victim and her family to oppose the proposed conversion and marriage. In this case, the threats therefore proves that the religious outcome was being pursued through intimidation rather than through free and informed choice. It is further 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, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. 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. In this context, the testimony of the family, especially that of a close relative like the brother, holds considerable weight. 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. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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. Thus, the hate-crime dimension lay in the attempted coercive displacement of the victim’s Hindu identity. 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. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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.
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
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 5 to 10
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
