Hindu woman raped and brutally assaulted for refusing conversion to Islam

Case ID : 63c00ee | Location : Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 31 March, 2025

Case ID : 63c00ee

Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, India

31 March, 2025

Hindu woman raped and brutally assaulted for refusing conversion to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was raped, physically assaulted, and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Badshah Khan, whom she had met on Instagram two months ago. The victim stated that she met the accused through Instagram about two months ago. After the initial online interaction, the accused forcibly entered her house at night and raped her. It was further stated that the accused wanted to keep her with him and marry her forcibly. For this reason, he was trying to convert the woman to Islam. When the girl refused, she was brutally assaulted, the video of which went viral on social media. He dragged her out of the house by her hair, threw her on the road, beat her with slippers, and tried to strangle her. As of the date of writing this report, based on the woman's complaint, the accused was arrested by the police. He was booked under relevant section of rape and assault.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected is: - Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. 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. 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was pressured for religious conversion, and when she refused, she was raped and physically assaulted by a Muslim man named Badshah Khan. The accused wanted to forcibly convert her to Islam and marry her without her consent. His actions reflect a pattern of predatory behaviour rooted in religious hatred with the intention of targeted subjugation of a Hindu woman. For this, he used sexual violence and intimidation as tools to break her spirit and force her into abandoning her religious identity. These actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. His use of physical and sexual violence as instruments to pressure her for conversion aligns with a broader trend of religiously motivated hate crimes, where the Hindu identity of the victim becomes the focal point of hostility. In this case, rape and assault were not merely acts of violence but deliberate means of psychological warfare aimed at religious submission. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: The victim states that she met the accused one and a half months ago through Instagram, and a few days later, she was raped, without mentioning an exact date. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—April 1, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on June 12, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.