Hindu woman raped and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man; victim assaulted and abused her with casteist slurs upon refusal

Case ID : 30aac7a | Location : Alwar, Rajasthan, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 11 September, 2024

Case ID : 30aac7a

Alwar, Rajasthan, India

11 September, 2024

Hindu woman raped and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man; victim assaulted and abused her with casteist slurs upon refusal

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In Alwar, Rajasthan, a Hindu woman was raped, blackmailed and pressured to convert to Islam by a Muslim man identified as Mausam Khan. When she resisted, he abused her with casteist slurs, assaulted her, and threatened to kill her son. According to the complaint, the victim came into contact with the accused, who was the brother of her son's friend. The accused reportedly visited her home and offered to employ her as his assistant, promising to help her find a job. On 12 September 2024, the victim travelled with the accused to Delhi to search for her son. The accused booked two rooms at a hotel and persuaded her to stay in a separate room. He then drugged her food, rendered her unconscious and raped her. During the incident, he also took obscene photographs of her. When she regained consciousness and confronted him, he threatened to circulate the photographs and defame her. He subsequently blackmailed and subjected her to prolonged sexual exploitation over a period of approximately six months using the photographs as leverage. The victim further stated that the accused pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. When she refused, he assaulted her and attempted to kill her by suffocating her with a pillow. She stated that he attempted to murder her twice. On one occasion, he suddenly entered her home, assaulted her, threatened to kill her son and used casteist slurs against her. Subsequently, the victim approached the NEB police station seeking action, but after receiving no immediate relief, she moved the court. Following the court's directions, the NEB police registered a case against Mausam Khan under Sections 64(2)(m), 115(2), 352, 351(2) and 333 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The investigation was assigned to Deputy Superintendent of Police Manisha Meena of the SC/ST Cell. Police began examining the accused's call records, contacts from different mobile numbers, evidence relating to the hotel in Delhi and the reported attempts to murder the woman.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected here 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 other sub-category selected here 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. The second primary category selected here is - Hate speech against Hindus. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because the victim was subjected to sexual exploitation alongside pressure to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam. The victim specifically stated that Mausam Khan pressured her to convert and marry him. 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 second important factor was the use of threats and physical violence in the context of the conversion pressure. When the victim resisted, he assaulted her and attempted to kill her in an attempt to exercise control over her. In this case, the sexual violence and the abuse served not only to exert physical control over the victim but also to undermine her religious autonomy. The use of blackmail to continue the sexual exploitation, coupled with the pressure to convert and the violence that followed her refusal, demonstrated an attempt to break down her resistance through fear, humiliation and repeated coercion. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Furthermore, in this case, the Hindu woman was also abused with casteist slurs by the accused. It can be argued that a caste-specific slur is aimed at her micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not her Hindu identity itself. However, as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. Thus, when the accused hurled caste abuses at the victim, the animosity was driven by his animosity towards Hinduism and Hindus. 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. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. The earliest date mentioned is 12 September 2024, when she went to Delhi and was sexually exploited by the accused. Since Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began and not when it was reported, we have considered the date of the incident as 12 September 2024, though the media reported the incident on 8 October 2026.