Hindu boy gets honeytrapped by daughter of a ISI agent in Pakistan, gets lured into converting to Islam
Pune, Maharashtra, India 
7 April, 2007
Case Summary
25-year-old Vishal, a student from Pune, Maharashtra, was entangled in a complex espionage case after falling in love with a Pakistani girl named Fatima Sallahudin Sha he met online in 2005. The Pakistani girl was the daughter of an ISI agent and the 2007 espionage case record still lists the ISI spy Sallahudin Sha and his daughter Fatima Sha as being ‘wanted’. The Pakistani woman honey-trapped the Hindu boy in her love. He was then lured to convert to Islam by the woman and her father with promises of a permanent home and a company in London. He also received money from the accused. The Hindu boy then started passing crucial military information to Pakistan through this family. Vishal was arrested on charges of spying by the Pune city police on April 8, 2007. During searches, the police allegedly recovered CDs with photographs of buildings of various Army establishments in in Pune like the National Defence Academy (NDA), Bombay Engineering Group (BEG), Southern Command etc. It also carried photographs of sensitive locations like the famous Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Temple and the RSS head office ‘Motibag’ in Pune, the police said. The investigation also showed that Vishal had made contact with Muslim preachers in Malegaon and Pune to become an Islamist. On March 29, 2011, Vishal was found guilty and was sentenced to 7 years in jail. He was reportedly freed after serving his time in Yerwada Central Prison.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under two sub-categories of predatory proselytisation in the tracker because of the various distinct components that demonstrate the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and their deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. The first sub-category under predatory proselytisation relevant in this case is 'Proselytisation by brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination'. 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 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 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 indoctrinated 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. Here, the Muslim accused used honey trapping as a recruitment tool, exploiting romantic relationships to lure the Hindu victims into their ideology and practices. Honey trapping as a means to induce someone to convert to a different religion or belief system is a highly manipulative and unethical tactic and a sort of harassment that is rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and is therefore documented as a religiously motivated hate crime under this sub-category in this Hindu hate tracker. The second sub-category under predatory proselytisation relevant in this case is 'Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement'. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. Details of the case reveal that the Muslim perpetrators tried to lure the Hindu youth by offering him inducements like property and business. This was clearly done because the perpetrator held disdain for the victim's professed faith, which is Hinduism and harboured a clear intention to proselytise the Hindu victim. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victim and the intention of disenfranchising him from it, the case has been categorised under this sub-category. Here, only the element of predatory proselytisation is considered a hate crime based on religion. The charges of espionage against Vishal were indeed proven and he was sentenced to prison, however, the predatory nature of the conversion is independent of the espionage crime by Vishal.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Perpetrator held guilty by court
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
