Hindu man and his family, including minor children pressured to convert to Christianity by sister-in-law, assaulted for opposing conversion
Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India 
22 October, 2026
Case Summary
In Amlidih, under the jurisdiction of New Rajendra Nagar Police Station in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, a Hindu man and his family, including his wife, minor daughter and 16-year-old son, faced pressure to convert to Christianity. The man's sister-in-law, Vishakha Masih, and her friend, Dulari Sahu, were taking his wife and minor daughter to church and pressuring other family members to adopt Christianity. The family's younger daughter had already undergone religious conversion, and efforts to persuade the 16-year-old boy to convert had begun, including taking him to church and offering him inducements to change his religion. When the Hindu man opposed the conversion efforts, he was assaulted . He and his 16-year-old son subsequently approached New Rajendra Nagar Police Station to file a complaint. The family, which relied on domestic work in other people's homes for its livelihood, also reported that their mobile phones had been broken, their house had been locked, and they had been prevented from accessing medical treatment. Following the complaint, Raipur Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Vishakha Masih and Dulari Sahu under Section 16(1) of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act, 2026. The police began investigating the matter and examined the details concerning pressure to convert, physical assault, damage to mobile phones, the locking of the house and obstruction of medical treatment. They arrested both women and sent them to jail.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The first subcategory for this case is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: Family claims grooming 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 next subcategory for this case is: Conversion/ attempts to convert by 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: 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. This case involved a Hindu man whose sister-in-law and her friend pressured him and his family to convert to Christianity. His wife and daughter were taken to church, and his younger daughter had already undergone religious conversion. The accused also targeted his 16-year-old son, offering him inducements to convert and beginning to take him to church. When the Hindu man opposed these conversion efforts, he was assaulted, his mobile phone was broken, his house was locked, and his access to medical treatment was obstructed. These actions formed one continuous attempt to move the Hindu family away from its faith and towards Christianity. At the outset, the Hindu man and his family were subjected to pressure to convert to Christianity, directly challenging their religious identity and their right to preserve their Hindu faith. For a Hindu family, religion is deeply connected to cultural heritage, ancestral traditions, household worship, festivals, rituals and the values passed from one generation to the next. Pressuring an entire household to abandon these traditions and embrace another religion strikes at the heart of its religious autonomy. In this case, the pressure extended across multiple family members, placing the father's own faith, his wife's religious identity and his children's upbringing at the centre of the dispute. The incident highlighted the seriousness of attempts to influence a Hindu family's religious choices and undermine its ability to preserve its faith within its own household. The fact that the man's younger daughter had already undergone religious conversion marked a significant development in the family's religious circumstances. The father's concern extended beyond the possibility of conversion to a change that had already taken place. For Hindu parents, passing on religious traditions, cultural values, customary practices and spiritual beliefs forms an important part of family life. The conversion of a child to another religion can therefore raise profound concerns for a parent seeking to preserve the family's Hindu heritage. In this case, the daughter's conversion intensified the father's concerns about the religious direction of his household and the future of his children's connection to Hindu traditions. Furthermore, the man's wife and minor daughter were taken to church, placing two more members of the Hindu household within the efforts to encourage conversion to Christianity. The significance of these visits lay in their connection to the wider pressure on the family to change its religious affiliation. Hinduism encompasses a rich diversity of worship, temple traditions, household rituals, festivals and spiritual practices that families often pass down through generations. In this context, the father faced the prospect of his wife and daughter being drawn away from the religious traditions he sought to preserve within his family. The concern was not the mere act of entering a church, but the role of these visits in the broader conversion dispute. Taken together with the younger daughter's conversion and the pressure on other family members, the church visits formed part of a pattern that placed the family's Hindu identity under sustained pressure. Of particular concern was the deliberate targeting of the Hindu man's 16-year-old son for conversion to Christianity, with inducements offered to influence his religious choices and efforts to take him to church already under way. The involvement of a minor intensified the threat to the family's religious continuity, as the boy's faith and upbringing were being targeted while he remained under his father's care. Offering inducements to encourage a Hindu teenager to abandon his family's religion went beyond ordinary religious discussion and introduced incentives into an attempt to change his faith. For the father, who sought to preserve his family's Hindu identity, these efforts directly challenged his responsibility to pass on Hindu traditions, cultural values and religious practices to the next generation. Hindu religious upbringing encompasses family worship, festivals, rituals, customs and a wider cultural inheritance that connects children to their heritage. The efforts to influence the boy therefore placed the family's religious continuity at stake and reinforced the father's opposition to the conversion pressure directed at his household. Most seriously, the Hindu man was beaten after resisting efforts to convert his family to Christianity. The assault followed his refusal to abandon his religious beliefs and his opposition to the pressure being placed on his wife and children to change their faith. The incident underscored the severity of the conversion dispute, as the Hindu father who stood against efforts to change his family's religious identity became the target of physical violence. These actions compounded the harm faced by the family and intensified the consequences of the man's resistance to the conversion efforts. The case therefore involved not only pressure to convert an entire Hindu household, including a minor son, but also violence against the father who opposed those efforts, striking at the family's religious autonomy, personal safety and right to preserve its Hindu faith. 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. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. None of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date the incident occurred. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we recorded the date as when the incident was reported in the media: 23 October 2026.
Victim Details
Total Victim
5
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 2
- Female 3
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 5
Age Group
- Minor 3
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
female
Sources 
