Minor Hindu girl lured into relationship, forcibly converted to Islam, pressured to wear burqa and denied marriage after conversion by Muslim man
Nashik, Maharashtra, India 
3 October, 2021
Case Summary
In Nashik city, Maharashtra, a minor Hindu girl was lured into a relationship, forcibly converted to Islam, pressured to wear a burqa and denied marriage after her conversion by a Muslim man, Aman Afsar Khan. She was also sexually exploited and blackmailed through obscene photographs and videos, with ₹5 lakh demanded for their deletion. After continued harassment, the girl and her family members approached the police, and they lodged a complaint at Bhadrakali Police Station in Nashik. Based on the complaint, police registered a case against Aman Afsar Khan under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Maharashtra anti-conversion law. The reports described it as the first case registered in Nashik under the state's anti-conversion law. After the complaint, police began investigating and searching for Aman Afsar Khan. According to the complaint, the sequence of events began in 2021, when the girl was 16 years old and studying in Class 11. She met Aman Afsar Khan through Instagram, after which he remained in contact with her and began meeting her regularly. During this period, her father died, after which she became mentally distressed. Khan took advantage of her condition, grew closer to her and promised to marry her. While she was still a minor, Khan took her to a lodge in Nashik, where he sexually assaulted her. He told her that he would never leave her and that he considered her his wife. He subsequently continued meeting her at different places and sexually exploiting her while continuing to promise marriage. The period of exploitation lasted approximately five years. After the girl turned 18, she asked Khan about marriage. He told her that she and her family members would first have to convert to Islam if they wanted her to marry. According to the complaint, she converted under this pressure. Khan then pressured her to wear a burqa and prevented her from speaking with other men. Despite the religious conversion to Islam, he did not marry her. After this, Khan continued calling her to different locations, including various lodges, where the sexual exploitation continued. During the course of the relationship, Khan also made obscene photographs and videos of her and threatened to circulate them on social media. He demanded ₹5 lakh for deleting the photographs and videos and continued to blackmail her. The girl attempted to end the relationship, but Khan continued telephoning her and causing her mental and physical distress. On 25 June 2025, Khan pressured her to meet him and sexually assaulted her again. On 28 September 2025, he again demanded money and threatened her with serious consequences.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories selected are: Rape and sexual assault/harassment and 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 primary category selected is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Forced conversion before marriage. The tertiary category selected is: Forced to wear Hijab. 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: Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories selected are Rape and sexual assault/harassment and 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 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. This case is added to the tracker because it involves the targeting of a Hindu minor through sexual exploitation and coercive pressure to convert to Islam. In this case, a Hindu minor girl was sexually abused by a Muslim man after being drawn into a relationship. She was pressured to convert to Islam, with both her and her family required to convert as a condition for marriage, and she was subsequently made to wear a burqa. The case therefore has a religious dimension beyond the underlying sexual offences, as the abuse was accompanied by pressure to change the religion of both the victim and her family. At the core of the religious dimension was the pressure to convert the victim from Hinduism to Islam as a condition for marriage. This made her Hindu identity the specific religious identity that had to be relinquished before the proposed marriage could proceed. The significance of the marker lay in the fact that conversion was not presented as an incidental personal choice but as a prerequisite attached to marriage. For the victim, practising her Hindu faith was therefore placed in direct conflict with the marriage condition, while adopting Islam was presented as the required route towards that marriage. The religious pressure consequently operated against the continuation of her existing Hindu identity by making its abandonment a condition attached to the relationship. More significantly, the conversion was tied to a marriage that ultimately did not materialise. The religious pressure acquired an additional significance because the victim changed her religious identity after being told that conversion was necessary for marriage, yet the marriage did not follow. The sequence meant that the abandonment of her Hindu faith was demanded as the price of a promised marital relationship, while the promised relationship itself was not fulfilled afterwards. The religious change therefore stood apart as a consequence imposed upon her, rather than resulting in the marriage that had been presented as its purpose. The religious pressure also extended into the victim's appearance and personal conduct through the requirement to wear a burqa. This was significant because the religious change was accompanied by an expectation that she adopt a form of Islamic-associated dress after leaving her Hindu identity. The restriction was not confined to what religion she identified with; it extended to how she was expected to present herself and conduct her interactions with other men. In that sense, the pressure affected both her religious identity and aspects of her everyday personal expression after the conversion. Crucially, the religious demand extended beyond the victim to her family, requiring them to convert as a condition for the marriage. This gave the religious pressure a wider anti-Hindu dimension because the demand was not limited to changing the faith of the individual woman. Her family's existing religious identity was also brought within the condition imposed for the proposed marriage. The requirement therefore placed pressure on the Hindu identity of an entire family unit, making the preservation of their existing faith incompatible with the stated marriage condition. It transformed what could otherwise have remained an issue concerning the victim's individual religious identity into a demand affecting her family's religious affiliation as well. Collectively, these factors established multiple religious dimensions in which the victim's Hindu identity was subjected to pressure to be abandoned, the proposed marriage was made conditional upon conversion, the change in religious identity was accompanied by expectations concerning Islamic dress and conduct, and the demand was extended to her Hindu family. Taken together, these elements went beyond the underlying sexual exploitation and implicated the religious identity of both the victim and her family. Accordingly, this case has been documented in the Hinduphobia Tracker's Hate Crime Database as an instance of religiously motivated hostility directed against Hinduism and the religious identity of the Hindu community. 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. Disclaimer: The exact date on which the Hindu girl and the Muslim perpetrator first came into contact was not specified in the available sources. However, the year of their initial contact was indicated as 2021. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was reported or published. In this case, 4th October 2021 has been used as the indicative incident date, derived by aligning the known year of initial contact with the first report publication date of 4th October 2026. This date has been recorded for documentation purposes only. The Hinduphobia Tracker records victim counts based on confirmed figures available in the source. The source confirmed one confirmed Hindu victim, while also stating that her family was asked to convert to Islam as a condition for the proposed marriage. However, the exact number of family members who were subjected to this demand was not specified. For documentation purposes, a conservative count of 1, referring to the named Hindu victim, has been used as the victim count. This was recorded 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 
