Minor Hindu schoolgirl forced to convert and marry by Muslim men, threatened with murder

Case ID : 323458d | Location : Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 12 October, 2023

Case ID : 323458d

Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, India

12 October, 2023

Minor Hindu schoolgirl forced to convert and marry by Muslim men, threatened with murder

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

A minor Hindu schoolgirl studying in Class 12 and living with her maternal grandfather in Silavad, Barwani district, Madhya Pradesh, was forced by two Muslim men, Rinku Chaudhary (son of Rashid) and Ameen (son of Kalu), to convert to Islam and marry. Both accused were already lodged in jail in connection with another case registered earlier in Palsud. The girl stated that her ordeal began when she was in Class 10. She started receiving Instagram messages from an account under the name “Rinku Chaudhary” with lines like “I love you” and “please be my friend.” When she ignored the messages, the man obtained her phone number and began calling her repeatedly, expressing his desire to marry her. The harassment escalated when Rinku Chaudhary and his friend Ameen began following her school bus on a bike and forcing her to speak with them. The victim said both men threatened to kill her if she refused to convert to Islam or marry them. The police registered a case under multiple legal sections against both men, who were already in jail for their earlier criminal acts.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker under the category Predatory Proselytisation, with the subcategory- Harassment, threat, and 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. The other subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- 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. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker as it represents a deliberate and sustained attempt to force a minor Hindu girl into religious conversion and marriage through intimidation, threats, and psychological manipulation. The facts of the case reveal a clear religious motive behind the harassment. The two Muslim accused, persistently targeted the Hindu schoolgirl from the time she was in Class 10, sending unsolicited romantic messages, following her to school, and later threatening her life if she refused to convert to Islam and marry them. Their actions demonstrate a well-established pattern of religiously motivated predation; beginning with deception and harassment and escalating into coercion and threats of violence, aimed at breaking the will of a Hindu minor and forcing her to abandon her faith. This coercion cannot be understood in isolation from Islamic marital law, which requires that both partners share the same faith for a valid marriage under Islamic tenets. Conversion thus becomes a prerequisite to marriage, and in cases involving Hindu victims, perpetrators use intimidation and emotional manipulation to make the Hindu girl renounce her religion and adopt Islam. The demand for conversion before marriage is not merely procedural; it reflects a mindset that views the Hindu faith as inferior and seeks to impose Islamic religious supremacy through personal relationships. Hence, the harassment is not incidental but the direct outcome of religious animosity and the belief that a Hindu’s identity must be erased for the union to be legitimate. The victim’s minor age further aggravates the crime. As a schoolgirl, she was legally incapable of providing consent for either marriage or conversion. The accused exploited her vulnerability and youth to manipulate and terrorise her into submission. The threats of death if she refused to convert reveal that the primary objective was not love or companionship but religious domination. The element of coercion was therefore present from the very beginning, making this a hate crime rooted in religious hostility. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began approximately two years ago when she was in class 10th, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—October 13, 2023—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on October 13, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.