Minor Hindu girl lured into relationship, pressured for religious conversion and marriage, and sexually exploited by Muslim man
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India 
14 October, 2026
Case Summary
In Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, a 17-year-old Hindu girl was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man, Sharif Ali, who pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him, and sexually exploited her. Sharif Ali, son of Lal Mohammad, who lived in the Kashiram Awas housing complex in Varanasi, brought the 17-year-old Hindu girl to the district court on the afternoon of 15 October 2026 to marry her. The girl's father said his family had repeatedly tried to reason with Sharif Ali and his relatives, but they failed to stop him. According to the report, the girl left home and accompanied Sharif Ali to court, where the couple's presence sparked a dispute over their proposed marriage. At court, Sharif Ali and a lawyer disagreed, after which the police arrived at the scene. Sharif Ali gave a different account, saying the girl's parents had asked him to come to court and that their lawyer had summoned him. He said that, upon his arrival, the lawyer had told him that the marriage would be arranged and that the girl's parents would disown their daughter. Sharif Ali had agreed to this arrangement. He further stated that the lawyer had demanded 10,000 rupees from him and another 10,000 rupees from the girl's side. When he said that he did not have the money, the lawyer and others beat him and handed him over to the police. He also stated that a criminal case was being pursued against him. The police summoned both families to the Kachahri Police Outpost. The girl's father submitted a written complaint to the Cantonment Police, accusing Sharif Ali of luring his daughter away, sexually exploiting her, and attempting to force her into religious conversion and marriage against her wishes. The family described the incident as ‘love jihad’ and demanded legal action. The father also reported that Sharif Ali's father and mother supported his actions. The police took Sharif Ali into custody. Cantonment Police Station House Officer Raj Kishore Pandey said the girl's father had submitted a written complaint and that further action was being taken on that basis. The Cantonment Police were investigating the matter.
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: Family claims grooming, 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 subcategory selected is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The 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 other subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories selected are: Family claims grooming, 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 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. This case was classified as a religiously motivated hate crime because the conduct attributed to the Muslim man specifically involved a Hindu minor. The incident was not limited to sexual exploitation or an attempt to compel the girl into marriage. A central part of the complaint by the minor girl's parents was pressure to convert her to Islam and marry against her will. The attempt to alter the religious affiliation of a Hindu minor against her will gave it a distinct religious dimension and established a direct connection between the coercive conduct and the victim’s Hindu identity. Firstly, the forced conversion of the 17-year-old Hindu girl from Hinduism to Islam represented a direct challenge to her religious identity and freedom of belief. The girl's father stated that Sharif Ali attempted to change her religion against her will, making religious conversion a central element of the complaint. This demonstrated the protection of Hindu minors from coercion that interfere with their religious upbringing, beliefs and continued association with their faith. The significance of this marker rested on the use of pressure to alter the religious identity of a Hindu girl, rather than on conversion to Islam itself. The conduct represented a violation of her individual autonomy and religious freedom. Secondly, the complaint connected the proposed marriage with religious conversion pressure, which further displayed that a Hindu minor was being pressured to change her faith as part of a marital arrangement. The girl's father maintained that the proposed marriage was against her wishes and that the conversion was intended to accompany it. This combination proved the loss of religious autonomy of a Hindu minor within a relationship. The religious dimension arose from the coercion directed at her Hindu identity and from the fact that her marriage and religious affiliation were determined without her free consent. Thirdly, the registration of the complaint on the basis of the father's statement, while the girl was 17 years old, established that her family had formally brought the conduct to the attention of the police. This demonstrated that the concerns surrounding her safety, the proposed marriage and the religious conversion had entered the formal legal process. 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 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 the earliest mentioned date, when the girl was taken to the Varanasi district court, that is, 15 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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
