Conversion racket busted in Maharashtra; hundreds of Hindu men forcefully circumcised; honey trapped into converting to Islam
Daund, Maharashtra, India 
11 January, 2023
Case Summary
A major conversion racket came to the fore in Maharashtra in January 2023. According to reports, every year, more than 200 Hindus are converted in the state's Daund town. Reports revealed that Hindu men are lured into honey traps to convert them. In the region, over 100 men are forced to get circumcised every year. Kamel Qureshi alias Haji Saheb, the mastermind behind this racket, was arrested by the Maharashtra police. The police said that on October 14, 2022, Kamel Kureshi and his aide Asif Sheikh got a Muslim doctor with them and forcefully entered the victim’s house in the Kumbhargalli area of Daund. The victim’s wife and his daughters were thrown out of the house before they forcefully circumcised the victim and converted him to Islam.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because there is a distinct component in this case, which essentially involves harassment, threats, and 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. The second sub-category under 'Predatory Proselytisation' relevant in this case is conversion 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. In this case, the accused adopted intimidatory tactics like forced circumcision on the Hindu victims to arm-twist them into renouncing their professed faith and accepting Islam. Additionally, 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 in this Hindu hate tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
100
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 100
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 100
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 100
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
