Case Summary

In Jodhapura village of Agra district, Uttar Pradesh, Hindus were targeted for forced conversion to Christianity through birthday parties, inducements, and 'miraculous healing’ meetings. The operation was carried out by four Christian individuals: Vineet Vedi alias Vineet Pastor, Bantu Baghel, Mukhraj, and Pratap Singh Kushwaha. The accused were part of a well-funded and coordinated interstate conversion racket that operated across India and carried out several coercive conversions of Hindus to Christianity. At around 6 p.m. on 23 September 2026, 50–60 Hindus were targeted during one such gathering, with more than half of those present being women. The police investigation revealed that the accused specifically targeted poor, uneducated, and financially vulnerable Hindu villagers facing financial hardship, family difficulties, personal distress, or health problems. They gained their trust through prayers and small monetary assistance before encouraging them to embrace Christianity through a structured process of religious instruction. Birthday parties served as a cover for conducting Christian religious meetings, while ‘Changai Sabhas’ (healing meetings) were organised to attract and indoctrinate vulnerable Hindus. The incident came to light after the Intelligence Bureau alerted Agra Police that a birthday gathering at the residence of Pratap Singh Kushwaha was being used as a front for conversion activities. Police reached the spot, questioned those present, and arrested all four accused. During the investigation, police found that Pratap Singh Kushwaha’s house had been repeatedly used to organise similar birthday gatherings and healing meetings for carrying out conversion activities. During interrogation, Vineet Vedi identified himself as a pastor. Police recovered Christian religious material, mobile phones, cash, important documents, and Excel records documenting the conversion racket. A First Information Report was registered against all four accused. The investigation revealed that the conversion network operated through encrypted communication platforms, including Signal, Zoom, and IMO, along with multiple social media groups. Police said the accused received recruitment targets and funding for bringing new people into the conversion network, while Vineet had remained active across several states for nearly a decade. Police also recovered an Excel sheet that systematically tracked the conversion campaign. The records contained details of prospective converts, the number of Hindus who had agreed or refused to convert, the schedule for future conversions, and the number of additional ‘Changai Sabhas’ to be organised. According to investigators, the racket functioned through a structured hierarchy in which the organiser of a prayer or healing meeting was designated a ‘trainer’, the individual responsible for trapping Hindus and bringing them to meetings was called a ‘member’, and the person under whose cover the entire operation was conducted was known as the ‘gang leader’ or ‘group leader’. Payments and promotions were linked to the number of Hindus each participant succeeded in recruiting. Police stated that the organised conversion racket comprised more than 200 members across the country, including around 50 operating in Agra, particularly in the Sikandra and Itmad-ud-Daulah areas. The network divided conversion operations into territorial zones with fixed targets. One such zone, identified in recovered records as the ‘East-West Zone’, covered Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana, and operated under Pastor Vineet. According to police, conversion drives in an area began only after 30–40 Hindus had first been identified and trapped. Investigators also found that Chandravati, the mother of accused Pratap Singh Kushwaha, had converted to Christianity in 2025. The Agra conversion racket was further linked to another organised conversion network exposed in Shivpura village of Rajasthan's Banswara district on 22 September 2026. As previously documented by Hinduphobia Tracker, the perpetrators lured around 150 Hindus to a so-called 'Youth Festival', which served as a front for conversion activities involving healing meetings, Christian religious rituals, and systematic attempts to portray Hinduism as inferior to Christianity. Vulnerable Hindus were offered ₹1 lakh in cash, a monthly salary of ₹25,000, promises of passing examinations, four-wheelers, bungalows, and other inducements in exchange for converting. When a Hindu man named Aditya refused to abandon his faith, he was subjected to the denigration of Hindu deities, casteist slurs, threats, and physical assault, underscoring the coercive nature of the wider organised conversion network. At the time of writing this report, the investigation was underway to identify other members of the network, establish the full extent of the organised conversion racket, and examine its links with the Banswara conversion case.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is: Conversion/attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, 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 into changing 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. This case is a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime because Hindus were specifically targeted for conversion to Christianity through predatory methods. These methods included birthday parties organised as a cover for conversion, inducements, prayer meetings, so-called miraculous 'healing', emotional manipulation, and systematic brainwashing designed to persuade vulnerable Hindus to abandon their faith. The nature of the conversion efforts and the wider impact on the Hindu community all indicate a targeted action against Hindus as a collectivity. When individuals or groups focus their efforts on converting members of a particular religion, in this case, Hindus, then it demonstrates a fundamental disregard for the Hindu faith. Conversion, especially when not based on personal conviction but rather on external persuasion or pressure, is not simply about sharing a different belief system. It is an attempt to undermine the values, traditions, and identity of the Hindu community. In this context, the Christian perpetrators specifically targeted Hindus, which suggests a lack of respect for Hinduism and its followers. Such actions were carried out to strip Hindu victims of their faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. The use of birthday parties as a front for conversion activities showcased a calculated form of religious manipulation. What appeared to be ordinary social celebrations was repeatedly used to gather unsuspecting Hindu men and women, creating an atmosphere of trust and familiarity before introducing Christian teachings and conversion efforts. These gatherings were deliberately combined with prayer meetings and so-called miraculous 'healing' meetings, popularly known as 'Changai Sabha', which were presented as spaces for spiritual care, emotional support, and divine cures for illnesses. In reality, they functioned as organised platforms for religious indoctrination, where vulnerable Hindus were persuaded that embracing Christianity would cure diseases, resolve financial and family problems, and transform their lives. By disguising proselytisation as celebration, worship, and healing, the perpetrators exploited hope, desperation, and faith in divine intervention to systematically coerce Hindu victims into abandoning their religion. The use of financial incentives, healing meetings, prayers, and other inducements clearly demonstrated that these actions were not motivated by kindness, charity, or genuine concern for the welfare of vulnerable people. Instead, they were calculated attempts to exploit Hindus specifically because of their religion. By offering money, financial assistance, promises of relief from hardship, and other material benefits in exchange for conversion, the Christian perpetrators emotionally manipulated individuals facing poverty, family difficulties, personal distress, and health problems. Such coercive tactics stripped Hindu victims of genuine religious choice and sought to replace personal conviction with dependency, making the conversion process inherently exploitative and religiously motivated. The fact that Vineet Vedi had remained involved in such conversion activities for nearly a decade highlighted the predatory, organised, and persistent nature of the conversion network. His long-term involvement demonstrated that these were not isolated or spontaneous incidents, but sustained efforts carried out over many years to identify, influence, and convert Hindus through well-established methods of inducement and religious persuasion. The continuity of these activities reflected a resilient evangelical campaign that repeatedly targeted Hindu communities, illustrating the malicious determination of the perpetrators to expand Christian conversions through systematic and coordinated means. The manner in which the conversion network functioned demonstrated that this was not an isolated incident involving a few individuals. It operated through encrypted social media platforms, a structured hierarchy of 'trainers', 'members', and 'gang leaders' or 'group leaders', fixed recruitment targets, financial payments, promotions, territorial zones, and detailed Excel records tracking prospective converts and conversion progress. The network systematically identified poor, uneducated, and financially vulnerable Hindus, established trust through repeated interactions, organised birthday gatherings and healing meetings, and coordinated recruitment across multiple states. Such organised functioning revealed a deliberate and well-funded campaign directed at converting Hindus as a collectivity rather than isolated acts of religious persuasion. The incident also highlighted a growing pattern within organised conversion networks in which individuals who embrace Christianity continue to retain Hindu names while practising Christianity. This enables such crypto-Christians to blend seamlessly into Hindu communities, gain the confidence of unsuspecting families, and conduct conversion activities without immediately revealing their religious identity. In this case, the pastor and other Christian missionaries operated under Hindu names, illustrating how the continued use of a Hindu identity facilitated access to communities that might otherwise have been wary of conversion efforts. Such instances of predatory proselytisation activities stem from inherent hostility towards the victims' Hindu faith, since Abrahamic faiths like Christianity believe that any non-adherent to their faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert, making it a religiously motivated crime against Hindus. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports stated that around 60 Hindu villagers, including men and women, attended the Christian conversion gathering in Jodhapura village of Agra district, Uttar Pradesh. The reports specified that more than half of those present were women, but no exact gender-wise breakdown was provided. For documentation clarity, the Hinduphobia Tracker has applied a conservative proportional estimate of 31 women and 29 men, reflecting the reported female majority while maintaining the documented total of 60 victims.