Hindu woman beaten and thrown out of home after resisting forced conversion to Christianity by in-laws

Case ID : 5954ba7 | Location : Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 6 November, 2024

Case ID : 5954ba7

Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

6 November, 2024

Hindu woman beaten and thrown out of home after resisting forced conversion to Christianity by in-laws

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion after marriage

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Blackmailed to convert

Case Summary

In the Pipraich police station area of Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Kajal was harassed by her in-laws for dowry and pressured to convert to Christianity. When she refused, she was beaten and thrown out of the house. Kajal was married to Rishi Muni of Mahuva Khurd, Pipraich. After the marriage, her in-laws repeatedly demanded dowry. Despite her maternal family fulfilling earlier demands, they later insisted on ₹4 lakh more. When Kajal refused, she was told to either adopt Christianity or pay the dowry. Her in-laws were actively working with Christian missionaries, converting Hindus in exchange for money. Kajal stated that she was forcibly taken to a church-like house in the locality where conversions were taking place. There, her in-laws tried to pressure her into embracing Christianity, handed her a religious book, and asked her to recite Christian prayers. She firmly resisted, saying, “I am a Hindu. I cannot change my religion, even if I have to die.” For her refusal, she was beaten. The pressure continued at home, and when she still refused to convert, she was again beaten and ultimately thrown out of her marital home. She is now living with her parents. Kajal also revealed that her in-laws took her to a church in Kaptanganj, where she was again asked to convert, but she resisted. She added that her in-laws regularly brought other Hindus to churches for conversion and received money from the Church for each conversion. When she opposed this, they intensified the harassment and violence against her. On her complaint, Pipraich police registered a case against eight members of her in-laws’ family, including her husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law. SSP Dr. Gaurav Grover confirmed that strict action would be taken against all those involved.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The sub-category relevant in this case is- Forced conversion after marriage. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to Islam begins after marriage. 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. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert to Islam after marriage. 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 situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. The other sub-category selected is- Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The other sub-category selected is- Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. In this case, Kajal’s marriage with Rishi Muni was followed by sustained pressure from her in-laws to adopt Christianity. The harassment for dowry was intertwined with an explicit religious demand: she was told to either bring ₹4 lakh or convert to Christianity. She was forcibly taken to churches, handed Christian prayer books, and pressured to abandon her Hindu faith. Her refusal led to physical assaults and her eventual expulsion from the house. This reflects the precise pattern of forced conversion after marriage, where coercion to abandon Hindu religious identity begins only after the wedding. The denial of Kajal’s right to continue her Hindu practices and the imposition of Christian rituals on her make this a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. Kajal was repeatedly beaten and threatened when she resisted conversion. At every stage—whether inside the “church-like house,” in her marital home, or at Kaptanganj—her refusal to abandon her Hindu identity triggered violent assaults. Her in-laws’ violence was not random but specifically aimed at breaking her resistance to conversion. The attacks were directly tied to her insistence on remaining Hindu. The religious motive is clear: violence was used as a tool to compel her to accept Christianity. Beyond physical assaults, Kajal was subjected to psychological coercion. Her in-laws made her survival in the marriage conditional upon her religious conversion—effectively blackmailing her to choose between her Hindu faith and her marital security. They also made monetary demands (₹4 lakh) alongside conversion pressure, combining financial extortion with religious coercion. Additionally, since the in-laws were engaged in systematic conversion of other Hindus for money, Kajal was threatened with the same fate: either submit to conversion or face continuous violence and rejection. Hence, this case is documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: The victim stated that she married the Christian man on 7th March 2024. For the purpose of documentation, this date has been taken as the beginning of his ordeal. While media coverage of the incident emerged later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s suffering began, not when the case was reported.