Muslim man rapes Hindu woman in front of his wife, threatens her to wear burqa, perform Namaz and convert to Islam
Belgaum, Karnataka, India 
21 April, 2024
Case Summary
In Karnataka, a case has been registered against seven people including a husband and wife, for forcing a 28-year-old married Hindu woman to convert to Islam. The accused identified as Rafik raped the victim in front of his wife. He also stopped her from wearing ‘kumkum’ on her forehead. Accused Rafik took intimate pictures of the victim and used them to blackmail her into converting to Islam. Rafik and his wife also threatened to kill her if she refused to convert to Islam. Belgaum SP Bhimashankar Guleda confirmed that the accused compelled the Hindu victim to wear a burqa and perform namaz five times a day. The complainant said that caste-based slurs were used against her and that the accused told her she would have to convert to Islam since she belonged to a backward caste. Rafik asked her to divorce her spouse and threatened to release personal images of her on social media if she did not comply.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. 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 is also being added to the primary category 'crimes against women in relationships and sexual crimes' under the sub-category 'forced conversion before marriage' and rape or assault for conversion under the grooming category. 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. The relationship in such cases is mostly 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. In such cases, 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. Further, 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. In this case, it is unclear if the victim was in a consensual relationship with the perpetrator or a non-consensual one. However, it would appear that some fiduciary relationship did exist between the victim and the perpetrator. The perpetrator was using rape as a tool to force the victim to convert to Islam and perform Nikah with the perpetrator. This is a religiously motivated hate crime directed at the woman's religious identity and a classic method of grooming a non-Muslim woman for conversion. It is often seen that rape and sexual assault is used as a tool for forced conversion and for that reason, this case is being added to these categories. This case stands out as an example of a hate crime motivated by religion since the Muslim perpetrator used harassment, intimidation and pressure to try to get the Hindu victim to abandon her professed religion and accept Islam. Firstly, the perpetrator raped her and threatened to leak her private pictures on social media if she did not convert. The accused employed the arm-twisting tactic to compel the victim to accede to his demands. The victim was further coerced by the accused to offer Namaz and wear a hijab, two Islamic rituals, in an attempt to force her into conversion. She was compelled not to wear the kumkum, a significant cultural and spiritual symbol in Hinduism. Such perpetrators usually subject their victims to this sort of harassment when they harbour deep disdain for the victim's professed religion and have a blatant desire for the Hindu victim to adopt his professed religion. The case has been classified as a hate crime since the victim's religious beliefs and the desire to strip her of her religious rights serve as the driving force behind the crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 5 to 10
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
