Minor Hindu girl pressured for religious conversion and nikah; harassed and threatened by Muslim man in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh
Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India 
2 October, 2026
Case Summary
In Bilari, Moradabad district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu minor girl was pressured to undergo religious conversion and nikah by a Muslim man, Faizan. He also harassed her and threatened to kill her and her family when she refused his demands. For a long time, Faizan, son of Aqil and a resident of village Mankula, followed the minor student whenever she left her home to attend coaching or tuition classes. He regularly stopped her on the way, harassed her and verbally abused her. He pressured her to undergo forced religious conversion and marry him through nikah. When the girl opposed him and refused to comply with his demands, he threatened to kill her and her family. Distressed by the harassment and threats, the girl told her family everything that had happened. On 3 October 2026, her father submitted a written complaint at Bilari Police Station. Acting on the complaint, Bilari Police immediately registered a case against Faizan under Sections 77, 352 and 351(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Sections 7 and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and Sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, including serious provisions relating to sexual offences against children and unlawful religious conversion. Immediately after registering the case, Bilari Police began searching for Faizan. On 4 October 2026, a police team took prompt action and arrested him. Police personnel were deployed in the area to maintain peace and law and order.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is: 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 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 other subcategory selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. 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 this case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Forced conversion before marriage. The tertiary category selected 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 subcategory selected is: Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. 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 and threats. 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 minor 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 first religious marker was the pressure placed on the Hindu minor to convert from Hinduism. Its religious significance lay in the attempted alteration of her established faith identity. The conduct was directed not merely at influencing a personal choice, but at replacing the religious affiliation of a Hindu girl with another faith. This constituted pressure directed at the continuity of her Hindu identity and religious belonging. The fact that conversion formed a central part of the demand gave the conduct a specifically religious character rather than making it solely a matter of interpersonal harassment. A second and distinct marker was the pressure for nikah. Its significance arose from the religious framework attached to the proposed marriage through Islamic rituals and its connection with conversion. Nikah was not presented as an independent matrimonial choice; it was tied to the demand that the Hindu minor change her religious affiliation and enter a marriage governed by another faith's customs. In that context, the pressure represented an attempt to move a Hindu minor girl from her existing Hindu religious framework into a Muslim matrimonial and religious framework, making her Hindu identity a central point of the conflict. The third religious marker was the harassment and threats that followed her refusal to accept the demands for conversion and nikah. Their religious significance arose from the sequence in which they occurred: pressure to alter her Hindu identity and enter a Muslim religious marriage was followed by intimidation when she rejected those demands. The conduct therefore transformed the religious pressure into coercion directed at a Hindu minor who had resisted the proposed change to her faith identity. This reinforced the religious character of the incident because the intimidation was connected to resistance to abandoning her Hindu identity and accepting the religious terms being imposed on her. 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 minor girl’s father, who submitted the written complaint after she disclosed the harassment and threats to her family, holds considerable weight. 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 and forced nikah, 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. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the incident occurred. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the FIR was registered by the minor's father, that is, 3rd October 2026.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
