Minor Hindu girl raped at gunpoint and pressured to convert to Islam; again gang-raped for refusing conversion demands
Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
28 September, 2025
Case Summary
In the Simbhaoli police station area of Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl belonging to the Dalit community was raped at gunpoint by a Muslim man. The accused then blackmailed her with obscene photographs, threatened to circulate them, and extorted thousands of rupees and jewellery from her. He later pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him, and when she refused, he and his Muslim accomplice gang-raped her. The incident came to light when the victim’s father filed a police complaint seeking justice for his daughter. The victim’s father, who worked as a labourer in another district, said his minor daughter lived with her elder sister in a village under Babugarh police station and also worked as a labourer in other people’s fields. Last year (2025), while she had gone to work during the pea harvest, a Muslim youth working there photographed her while she went to a field to defecate. He subsequently began blackmailing her using the photograph. The accused’s sister later befriended the girl and took her to her brother on the pretext of getting the photograph deleted. The Muslim youth then raped the minor at gunpoint and took obscene photographs of her. He and his Muslim friend subsequently blackmailed and harassed her, threatening to make the photographs viral. Using these threats, the accused extorted thousands of rupees and jewellery from the teenager. The accused thereafter pressured the Hindu minor to convert to Islam and marry him. When she refused, both accused gang-raped her. After learning of the incident, her family approached the police and filed a complaint seeking action against the accused. Station House Officer Inspector Arvind Chaudhary said the incident took place within the Babugarh police station area, and police there were investigating the matter. At the time of writing this report, the Simbhaoli and Babugarh police were investigating the case.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category: Predatory Proselytisation. 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 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 a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime because a minor Hindu girl was first raped at gunpoint, blackmailed using obscene photographs, and then pressured to convert to Islam. When she refused to convert, she was gang-raped by the same Muslim man and his accomplice. The sequence of sexual violence, intimidation, blackmail and conversion pressure indicated that the victim was targeted in connection with her Hindu religious identity, with coercion and sexual violence being used to subject, humiliate and pressure her because of her faith. The fact that the victim was a minor made the circumstances of the crime particularly serious. As a minor, she was especially vulnerable to manipulation, intimidation and coercion, and the circumstances described did not involve any genuine or informed exercise of religious choice. Her obscene photographs were first used to blackmail and control her, after which she was raped at gunpoint and pressured to abandon her Hindu identity. This progression demonstrated a predatory method in which her age and vulnerability were exploited to place her under the perpetrators’ control and make her more susceptible to coercion. The exploitation of a minor in this manner further underscored the religious dimension of the crime. The manner in which the crime began also demonstrated a predatory pattern from the outset. The accused first photographed the girl in a vulnerable situation and subsequently used the photograph to blackmail her and bring her under his control. He then used this control to facilitate the sexual assault and subsequently pressure her to convert to Islam. The use of obscene photographs, threats, sexual violence and conversion pressure as interconnected means of coercion showed that the victim was subjected to a sustained course of intimidation rather than an isolated act of sexual violence. The rape was also followed by explicit pressure to convert to Islam, making the religious dimension of the sexual violence particularly significant. In this context, the sexual assault functioned not merely as an act of physical violence but as part of a broader pattern of domination and coercion directed at a Hindu victim. The subsequent demand that she abandon her faith indicated that the perpetrators sought to exploit the trauma, fear and vulnerability created by the assault to pressure her into conversion. The use of sexual violence alongside religious coercion therefore demonstrated hostility towards the victim in connection with her Hindu identity and constituted religiously motivated sexual violence. The pressure to convert to Islam further violated the victim’s religious autonomy and freedom of conscience. A genuine change of religion requires free and informed choice; a conversion sought through threats, blackmail, sexual violence or other coercive means cannot be regarded as an expression of free will. In this case, the victim was a minor who was subjected to intimidation, rape and blackmail before being pressured to abandon her Hindu faith. These circumstances negated any possibility of a genuinely voluntary religious choice and demonstrated that conversion was being pursued through coercion rather than conviction. The targeting of her Hindu identity in this manner further indicated the religious motivation underlying the crime. When the victim refused to convert, the Muslim man and his accomplice gang-raped her. The timing of the assault was significant because it followed her refusal to comply with the demand to abandon her faith. The gang rape therefore represented an escalation of violence in response to her exercise of religious autonomy and demonstrated the extreme coercive nature of the perpetrators’ conduct. Using sexual violence to punish a Hindu minor for refusing conversion reflected profound hostility towards her religious identity and reduced her to an object of domination because of her faith. This sequence of coercion, refusal and retaliatory sexual violence made the religiously driven nature of the crime particularly clear. Such instances of forced proselytisation are manifestations of doctrinal hostility embedded within Abrahamic religions like Islam that regard non-adherents as inferior and encourage their conversion. This leads to the dehumanisation of those who do not share the faith and creates an environment in which coercive conversion, intimidation, and blackmail become instruments for stripping Hindu individuals of their religious identity. In this case, the entire sequence of events, from the targeting of the Hindu victim to the blackmail, threats, coercion, and conversion pressure, was rooted in hostility towards the victim because of her Hindu identity. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident date based on when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported by the media. However, in this case, media reports did not specify the exact date on which the victim’s ordeal began. The incident was reported by the media on 29 September 2026, while the available timeline stated that her ordeal began in 2025. Based on these two pieces of information, 29 September 2025 was selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. In this case, although there were two main Muslim male perpetrators, the accused’s Muslim sister also facilitated and conspired in the crime by befriending the victim and taking her to her brother on the pretext of getting the photograph deleted. Hence, the perpetrator count was recorded as three, accounting for all three individuals involved in the crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
