Minor Hindu girl befriended and groomed for religious conversion by Muslim man in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
27 September, 2026
Case Summary
In Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a 14-year-old Hindu girl was befriended by a Muslim man who attempted to take her to Bihar for religious conversion and marriage. The accused, Mohammad Kaif, a resident of Siwan, Bihar, had befriended her through social media and attempted to take her to Bihar for religious conversion and marriage. On the evening of 28 September 2026, the victim left her home in Gujaini without informing her family and reached Kanpur Central railway station, carrying her belongings, where Kaif was waiting for her. He had travelled from Bhopal to Kanpur with three other men and had called the girl to the station. Members of a Hindu organisation who were searching for the missing girl reached the station and found her with Kaif. They apprehended him and handed him over to the railway police, while the girl's family had already reported her missing at Gujaini police station. Police from Gujaini police station subsequently took the girl and Kaif into custody. Kaif and his associates had planned to take the minor to Bihar, convert her to Islam and marry her. The three other men accompanying Kaif escaped from the station. Based on a complaint filed by the girl's father, police registered a case against Kaif under the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act and sections relating to kidnapping. The girl's statement was recorded at the police station before she was produced before the Child Welfare Committee. Kaif was subsequently presented before a court and sent to jail.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories are: Conversion of 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 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. The second primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary categories selected are: Conversion of 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 other subcategory selected is: Forced conversion before marriage. 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 case was added as a hate crime because the conduct went beyond an ordinary case of a minor being taken away for religious conversion by the Muslim accused. This religious element was significant because the objective was not merely to remove the girl from her family or enter into a relationship with her, but to subject her to a change of faith. The targeting of a Hindu minor for conversion was significant from the perspective of religious hostility. The circumstances demonstrated an attempt to remove a Hindu child from her existing religious environment and pressured her to convert to Islam. 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 grooming aspect was also significant to the religious nature of the offence. The accused had established contact with the minor through social media, developed a relationship with her, and then called her to Kanpur Central station while she was unaware of the broader consequences of his actions. The circumstances demonstrated that this relationship was used to gain the trust of a minor and facilitate her removal from her family and familiar environment. This was particularly concerning because the ultimate objective was to take her to Bihar for religious conversion and subsequently marry her. Thus, the grooming was not an isolated relationship-related act but formed part of the process through which the accused sought to place a Hindu minor in circumstances where she could be pressured to abandon her existing faith and adopt another religion. It is 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 or consenting to a relationship, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Furthermore, any supposed consent given is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate. Taken together, the religious objective, the victim’s Hindu identity, her status as a minor, and the intention to combine conversion with marriage provided grounds for viewing the incident as an act involving religious targeting. 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. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. 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
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
