Muslim man threatens and blackmails a married woman and her minor sister to convert to Islam, blackmails the woman to establish sexual relations with him
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
9 November, 2023
Case Summary
On November 10th, Madhya Pradesh Police arrested one Rahim Khan for threatening and blackmailing a married woman and her minor sister to convert to Islam. The accused coerced the woman to follow Islamic rituals, divorce her husband, and marry him. Police acted on the complaint filed by the woman, who revealed that Rahim, known to her mother, attended her sister's birthday party and deceitfully obtained photos of her mother. He then pressured her for sexual relations, uploading her picture online and making derogatory comments. Rahim subsequently blackmailed her into continuing the relationship, demanding her conversion to Islam and marriage to him.
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. In this case, the perpetrator exploited the victim's familiarity with him to pressure her and her minor sister to convert to Islam, by deploying threats and violence. As per the victim's testimony, he raped her by threatening to make her private pictures viral if she did not comply, marry him and convert to Islam. Due to the fear of harm that might come to the family, she could not do much. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu woman. Further, the central aim of the perpetrator was to disenfranchise the Hindu woman from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
