Hindu minor girl trapped, converted and forced into marriage by a married Muslim man in Domjur, West Bengal
Domjur, West Bengal, India 
16 September, 2026
Case Summary
In Domjur, West Bengal, a 15-year-old Hindu girl was trapped in a relationship by a Muslim man named Sheikh Safiqul, who later forcibly converted her to Islam and married her. Police later traced and recovered the minor in Tamil Nadu, while Sheikh Safiqul remained absconding. As per the report, Sheikh Safiqul, a resident of Domjur in Howrah district, West Bengal, trapped a 15-year-old minor Hindu girl in a relationship. He subsequently took her from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu. After taking the minor girl to Tamil Nadu, the accused converted her to Islam and married her. A few months later, the police traced the minor girl in Tamil Nadu and recovered her. During the investigation, it was found that the accused was already married and had two children. At the time of writing, the accused remained absconding. Notably, the Hinduphobia Tracker has recorded a total of 1,429 cases of crimes against women in which Hindu women were trapped and subjected to forced religious conversion through deception, identity fraud or by luring them into relationships. Such incidents are also called 'love jihad' or 'grooming jihad' in general parlance. Of these, an appalling 367 cases involved minor victims and 1399 of those cases involved perpetrators who were Muslims. In West Bengal alone, the Hinduphobia Tracker has recorded 15 such cases and, significantly, 5 of these 15 cases involved minor victims.
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- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Under this, the tertiary category selected is: Conversion of a 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 primary category selected in the case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The sub-category selected is: Forced conversion before marriage". The tertiary categories here is: 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. The other sub-category selected is: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary category selected is: 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 the purpose of 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. The case was included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because the Hindu identity of the minor was central to the religious dimension of the crime. The process involved taking a Hindu minor away from her home environment, subjecting her to religious conversion and entering her into an Islamic marriage, thereby replacing her inherited Hindu religious identity with that of the perpetrator. Further, the manner in which the relationship was established with a minor attracted particular concern because the trust of a young Hindu girl was used as the means through which the religious change was effected. The exploitation of that trust for a religious purpose went beyond an ordinary relationship and constituted a process through which the victim was separated from her own faith and brought into the religious framework of another faith. Being a minor 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. Moreover, the conversion was directly connected with the marriage. The abandonment of the victim's Hindu identity became a condition for the relationship to take its new religious form. Further, the accused deliberately took the minor across state boundaries, away from her family and familiar surroundings. This was done to place her in an unfamiliar environment and to increase the pressure on her to convert to Islam. Further, the fact that the perpetrator was already married and had two children was significant to the religious dimension of the case. His existing marriage showed that establishing a marital relationship was not the primary purpose of his conduct. Instead, the circumstances pointed to the deliberate targeting of the Hindu minor for the purpose of changing her religious identity and bringing her into the religious fold of the perpetrator. Taken together, these circumstances showed a deliberate process in which the religious identity of a Hindu minor was targeted, her trust was exploited, and her movement into another faith was connected with marriage. The religious dimension therefore remained central to the harm suffered by the victim and formed the basis for recording the case as a hate crime targeting a Hindu on account of her faith. Disclaimer: The exact date of the initial contact between the Hindu woman and the perpetrator was not specified in the available sources. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was published or reported. Since the date was not mentioned in the report, the date of reporting was considered 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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
