Tribal Hindu girl lured by Muslim man for marriage and forced religious conversion, forced to wear burqa and offer namaz
Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, India 
22 November, 2025
Case Summary
A tribal Hindu girl was targeted for religious conversion by a Muslim youth who befriended her on Instagram. According to the victim's statement, the accused took her to Dewas, raped her, and repeatedly pressured her to marry him and convert to Islam. He forced her to wear a burqa and follow Islamic practices like offering namaz. Acting on her complaint, the police have registered a case against the accused, a resident of Sendhwa, under multiple sections of the IPC, the SC/ST Act, and the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion law. The girl went to the police station with her family late Wednesday (December 3, 2025) evening to report the incident. She said she had become acquainted with Tausif, son of Naushad Khan of Khalwadi Mohalla in Sendhwa, through Instagram, and they began talking regularly. On November 23, Tausif forced her to record a fake video in which he made her say that she had left home of her own free will, so that if her parents filed a complaint, a case would not be registered against him. She said he raped her and tortured her to force her into converting. The next day, November 24, he took her on his bike to Dewas, brought her to a friend’s vacant house, and raped her again. He kept pressuring her to marry him and convert to Islam, telling her that after marriage, she would have to accept Islam, wear a burqa, and pray according to his religion. The victim said he kept her at his sister’s house in Dewas for a day. On November 25, he brought her from Indore to Sendhwa and fled, leaving her with his other sister during that time. The victim then went to the Sendhwa City Police Station, but since her parents were in Maharashtra and her health had deteriorated, the police placed her at the Forest Staff Centre in Barwani. When her parents returned on December 2, they brought her back from Barwani to Sendhwa, where she narrated the incident. The family then went to the police station on Wednesday and lodged a formal case against Tausif. Investigating officer SI Santosh Patidar said a case was registered against Tausif under section 64(1) of the Indian Penal Code 2023, sections 3(2)(v) and 3(1)(w)(i) of the SC ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, and sections 3 and 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Ordinance 2020. The accused has been taken into custody.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added under the category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the first subcategory selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. Within this, the tertiary categories chosen are- Forced to do Nikah, Forced to wear hijab, and Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices. 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 second subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or groomed. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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, the accused did not conceal his religious identity. Instead, he made the Hindu tribal girl believe that her faith would never come in the way of their relationship. Trusting this, she continued speaking to him and gradually entered into a relationship, thinking it was based on mutual affection. However, his real intentions soon emerged when he began pressuring her to convert, undergo Nikah, and follow Islamic practices, revealing that the relationship was being used as a pathway to religious control rather than genuine love. Once he gained emotional influence over her, he escalated to manipulation and sexual violence. He forced her to record a fake video saying she had left home willingly, using it as a shield to prevent police action if her family filed a complaint. He then transported her to Dewas, raped her, and continued to push for marriage and conversion, using both fear and assault to weaken her resistance. His demands that she abandon her Hindu identity, wear a burqa, and pray according to Islam made it clear that the relationship had become a tool to coerce her into a religious transformation she never consented to. The sequence of grooming, isolation, and sexual assault shows a calculated attempt to break down the victim’s autonomy. By exploiting her trust and then subjecting her to coercive religious demands, the accused created a situation where she was sexually victimised and simultaneously pressured to relinquish her Hindu identity. This pattern echoes many cases where vulnerable Hindu girls, especially from tribal communities, are drawn into relationships only to face coercion, conversion pressure, and violence once they are emotionally dependent. This case warrants inclusion in the tracker because it represents a clear instance where sexual exploitation, manipulation, and forced religious pressure were intertwined. The victim was not only assaulted but systematically pushed to accept Islamic rituals and identity markers as conditions imposed by the perpetrator. The targeting of both her body and her religion underscores the deeply discriminatory and exploitative nature of the crime. Disclaimer: The earliest verifiable point in the case, based on available reports, is 23 November 2024, when the accused forced the victim to record a fake video as part of his coercive control. For documentation purposes, we have treated this date as the incident date, using it as the marker for the beginning of her ordeal. Although the case was reported much later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents according to when the victim’s suffering and coercion first began, not when the matter eventually appeared in public reporting.
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
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
