Minor Hindu girl abducted by Muslim man pretending to be a Hindu, lured with money

Case Summary
This case emerged from Chandramau Manga village, Ayodhya, involving the abduction of a 14-year-old girl. The victim's mother, a resident of Vela Pur in Mumbai, filed a complaint accusing Zeeshan alias Mangal, son of Mushtaq and a resident of Chandramau Manga, of luring her daughter into a love trap under false pretences. According to the mother, the teenager sold paan and masala on Mumbai's local trains, where she came into contact with Zeeshan. He posed as a Hindu, offered her money, and manipulated her before bringing her to his village and hiding her. The victim’s family searched for her for four days. The girl's parents later confronted Zeeshan’s family at their home in Chandramau Manga, seeking answers. However, they were reportedly threatened with violence and driven away. Police Station In-Charge Shailendra Kumar Azad confirmed receiving information about the case, which was initially registered in Mumbai. He assured full cooperation with Mumbai Police investigators once they arrived. The incident heightened concerns, with the victim’s family demanding swift action to locate their minor daughter.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the primary category "Crimes against women in relationship and other sexual crimes". Two distinct sub-categories have been chosen because of the two threads in the crime details, which prove that the underlying motivation of the crime was religious in nature. The first sub-category being selected is 'Man pretends to be Hindu'. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. The second sub-category is 'Brainwashed and/or grooming'. 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 child was a minor. The mother of the 14-year-old stated that the Muslim perpetrator gave the child money to lure her away and also, before that, befriended the child by pretending to be a Hindu and hiding his religious identity. She category stated that the child was brainwashed and then abducted by the Muslim perpetrator. It is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Had the perpetrator't intent not been driven by religious hostility and had he not specifically targeted the minor owing to her religious identity, the perpetrator would not have felt the need to misrepresent his religious identity. Misrepresenting religious identity is an indicator that the accused was driven by religious motivations and the victim was specifically chosen for her religious identity as a characteristic. For that reason, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0

Case Status
Complaint registered

Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male