Hindu family forcibly converted to Christianity under guise of curing illnesses; family member dies despite promised 'healing'
Sonitpur, Assam, India 
2 October, 2018
Case Summary
In the Biswanath Chariali area of Assam, a Hindu tribal woman, Rina Munda, and her family were forcibly converted to Christianity under the pretext of curing her husband's illness. Despite the assurances of 'healing', her husband eventually died from the illness. When the family later sought to return to Hinduism, they were told that reverting to their Hindu faith would bring misfortune upon them. Their Hindu religious practices were also denigrated, with their prayers described as “praying to Satan”. According to the available information, Rina Munda and her family came into contact with a pastor named Biresh Tanti when her husband was suffering from an illness. Tanti was actively converting Hindus to Christianity in the Biswanath Chariali area and told the family that prayers to Jesus and Christian “miracles” could cure her husband's illness. Believing these assurances, Rina Munda and her family converted to Christianity in 2018 in the hope that her husband's illness would be cured. However, the promised healing did not materialise, and the husband whose illness had prompted the conversion eventually died. Following their conversion, the family was also cut off from their tribal community, leaving them socially isolated. Despite this, the family remained within Christianity because of the fear instilled in them by the Christian pastor. They were made to believe that returning to Hinduism would bring further misfortune and that abandoning Christianity would result in greater calamity. Their ancestral Hindu religious practices were also described to them as “praying to Satan”. This indoctrination and fear prevented the family from immediately returning to their ancestral Hindu faith. The incident came to light on 3 October 2026, when journalist and Hindu activist Swati Goel Sharma posted about the case on her official X handle. Sharma had previously worked with media organisations including Swarajya and The Times of India and was also involved in Hindu community activism. She leads Hindu organisations including Agni Samaj and Sewa Nyaya and works on issues concerning the rights and safety of Hindus. As part of its efforts to independently document the case and obtain further details, the Hinduphobia Tracker team contacted Swati Goel Sharma. During the interaction, Sharma stated that no police complaint had been found in connection with the incident. She confirmed that the family had been forcibly converted to Christianity in 2018 but subsequently returned to Hinduism through a ghar wapsi ceremony in 2026. Sharma also stated that she possessed supporting information, including the family’s contact numbers and Aadhaar details. However, she did not disclose their identities or further identifying information due to concerns about the safety of Hindu tribals in areas where Christian missionary activity was prevalent. This was done to protect the family from potential repercussions or threats to their safety.
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 through 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. 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: Attempting to convert/converting by denigrating Hinduism. In several cases, Hindus are converted or an attempt is made to convert Hindus by denigrating their faith, Hinduism. In such cases, the Hindus associate with the non-Hindu perpetrators often by choice and then, the attempt to convert them by insulting their faith, showing the faith down etc begins. An example of this would be a non-Hindu gathering where the Hindus are attending the gathering of their own free will. However, once they attend the gathering, there is an explicit attempt to convert them by abusing their faith and hailing the faith of the perpetrator. The denigration of the Hindu faith is often based on misrepresentation of the Hindu faith, its doctrine and scriptures and insult to espoused traditions if not blatant lies about Hindu beliefs and ways. Such conversions or attempts at conversions are driven by animosity towards the Hindu faith and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case was a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime, as the Hindu victims were forcibly converted to Christianity through false promises of healing and curing illnesses. The conversion did not take place through an informed and voluntary decision based on their own religious conviction, but through purported claims that Christianity and prayers to Jesus could cure the illness affecting a member of the family. These claims functioned both as inducements and as manipulative tactics, as the family's socio-economic vulnerability, personal difficulties and concern for an ailing family member were exploited to secure a change of faith. By presenting conversion as a means of obtaining a cure for diseases, the perpetrator placed the victims' personal desperation at the centre of the conversion process, undermining their ability to make a free and informed religious choice. Such circumstances demonstrated coercion rather than genuine religious persuasion and violated the victims' religious autonomy. The exploitation of their vulnerabilities specifically to separate them from their Hindu faith further demonstrated religious hostility towards their Hindu identity. The eventual death of the family member whose illness had prompted the conversion highlighted the grave consequences of purported healing claims used to facilitate religious conversion. Such claims are used in Christian prayer meetings often referred to as “Changai Sabhas”, where Hindus are told that conversion to Christianity and prayers to Jesus can cure illnesses and resolve personal difficulties. In this case, reliance on such claims meant that the underlying illness remained untreated, ultimately resulting in the death of the ailing family member. This demonstrated that such purported healing is not merely a means of religious manipulation but also has serious and potentially fatal consequences when vulnerable people are led to rely on it for medical relief, while their personal suffering is exploited to induce conversion. When the victims subsequently sought to return to Hinduism, they were subjected to further religious brainwashing and indoctrination. They were made to believe that reverting to their ancestral faith would bring calamity and misfortune upon them. This was significant because the denigration of Hinduism was no longer merely being used to facilitate the initial conversion; it was used to prevent the victims from exercising their religious autonomy and returning to their original faith. By portraying Hinduism as a source of misfortune and Christianity as the safer religious path, the perpetrator used fear to enforce continued adherence to Christianity. This attempt to restrict the victims' freedom to return to Hinduism demonstrated hostility towards their ancestral faith and showed how religious denigration was used as a mechanism of coercion. The description of Hindu worship as “satanic” further reinforced this pattern of religious hostility. In the context of the incident, portraying Hindu practices as satanic functioned as a tool of indoctrination designed to make the victims fear and reject their own faith. It also reflected a religiously supremacist attitude in which Christianity was positioned as the legitimate or superior faith while Hinduism was characterised as evil, dangerous or associated with Satan. Such framing did more than express theological disagreement: it delegitimised the victims' religious identity and reinforced the pressure to remain within Christianity. The use of such religious denigration to sustain a coercive conversion and prevent reversion therefore demonstrated hostility towards Hinduism and an attempt to impose religious adherence by degrading the faith from which the victims had come. The family's eventual return to their ancestral Hindu faith through a ghar wapsi ceremony further underscored the coercive nature of the earlier conversion. Their return indicated that the change of faith had occurred amidst inducement, manipulation and psychological pressure rather than through a freely exercised religious choice. Having been persuaded to abandon Hinduism through purported healing claims and subsequently discouraged from returning through fear-based indoctrination, their religious autonomy was undermined at both stages. This demonstrated that the conversion amounted to an attack on their Hindu religious identity and was rooted in religious hostility. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported in the media. In this case, the incident came to light on 3 October 2026, when Swati Goel Sharma posted about it on X. However, the family was forcibly converted to Christianity in 2018. Based on the available information, 3 October 2018 has therefore been selected as the indicative incident date and recorded for documentation purposes only.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
1
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 2
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint not filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
