Minor Hindu girl deceived and abducted for religious conversion by Muslim man; given Muslim name and forced to wear burqa

Case ID : 323456e | Location : Gurgaon, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 8 October, 2025

Case ID : 323456e

Gurgaon, Haryana, India

8 October, 2025

Minor Hindu girl deceived and abducted for religious conversion by Muslim man; given Muslim name and forced to wear burqa

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to wear Hijab

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Family claims grooming

Case Summary

In Gurugram, Haryana, a minor Hindu girl was deceived and abducted for conversion under the guise of marriage by a Muslim man named Sahel Ali. She was also forced to wear a burqa by the accused. The minor Hindu girl, a Class 7 student originally from Nepal, was living with her family in Gurugram. During this time, she came into contact with the accused, a resident of Shurun in West Bengal, who lived opposite her house. The victim's family stated that the accused gradually gained her trust under the false promise of marriage and abducted her with the intention of converting her to Islam. On 9 October 2025, he abducted her and took her to Delhi at a friend’s house, where he got her a fake Aadhar card in which her name was changed to Reshma Khatoon, essentially a Muslim name, to facilitate her conversion. He then dressed her in a burqa and took her to Delhi railway station. He initially booked a ticket to Katihar, Bihar, but later boarded the Brahmaputra Mail, which runs via Jharkhand to Assam. Meanwhile, the victim's family also filed a complaint with the police regarding their daughter. During the journey, he contacted several of his relatives, including his maternal uncle, who refused to let him bring the girl. He then told his uncle that he would take the victim to Kolkata, while telling the girl that they were going to Mumbai, in an effort to avoid getting caught. However, the victim grew suspicious of his intentions and got off the Brahmaputra Mail when it stopped at Barharwa station in Jharkhand on 10 October 2025. The accused followed her and attempted to persuade her to continue, creating a tense situation. This drew the attention of RPF personnel (Railway Police Force), who became suspicious and took both into custody. During interrogation, the victim recounted the entire sequence of events. She was later handed over to her parents, who arrived at the Barharwa station, while Sahel Ali was sent to jail by the police.

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 is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - 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 sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor and Family claims grooming. 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 has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was deceived and abducted for conversion under the guise of marriage by the Muslim accused. The accused abducted her under the promise of marriage, changed her name, with the explicit intention of converting her to Islam. Firstly, it is 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 or consenting to Nikah/marriage, and the Muslim perpetrators purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Additionally, any supposed consent given in such cases is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. 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. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor without her volition. Secondly, in the Islamic faith, the conversion of the non-Muslim partner was seen as a prerequisite for Nikah, which was why the accused had the intention of converting her to Islam. The purpose of forced religious conversion reveals the intent of the accused to strip the victim of her Hindu identity and impose an Islamic one upon her. Forced conversions such as this do not occur in a vacuum; they are rooted in deep‑seated hostility towards the faith of the victim, which makes this a clear case of a crime driven by religious hatred. Thirdly, the accused abducted her and changed her name to Reshma Khatoon, essentially giving her a Muslim name and identity. This was an attempt to isolate her from her Hindu identity and community so that she could be converted. Changing her name was a symbolic erasure of her previous Hindu identity by imposing an Islamic identity on her. Such manipulation reflects the deeper intent to sever the victim’s ties with her community and to normalise her new identity as a Muslim. Fourth, the accused made her wear a burqa while taking her to a different city. Although it might appear that this was done merely to conceal her identity, however, in reality, it is also an indirect attempt at subtly imposing an Islamic lifestyle upon her. It was not merely about clothing; it symbolised the effort to overwrite her Hindu identity and forcibly assimilate her into practices of the Islamic faith. This again glaringly demonstrates the religiously motivated nature of the crime. 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. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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. Given that this case meets several parameters of religiously motivated hate crime, it is being included in the Hate Crime Database maintained by the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began. However, in this case, the report does not provide specific details regarding when the accused trapped the victim in a relationship. The earliest date mentioned is 9 October 2025 - when she was abducted. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date of the incident has been recorded as 9 October 2025.