Hindus including women and children lured to convert into Christianity under the guise of prayer meetings in Kaithal, Haryana
Kaithal, Haryana, India 
4 October, 2025
Case Summary
In Kaithal’s Mahadev Colony in Haryana, Hindu individuals were being targeted for conversion to Christianity. Residents stated that certain individuals, under the cover of prayer meetings, had been promoting Christianity and targeting vulnerable Hindus, especially women and children. For three weeks, prayer meetings organised by Christian converts had taken place in a tent pitched in an empty plot behind the Jat Dharmshala on Sirta Road, without administrative approval. Locals started voicing opposition when women and children were reportedly targeted for conversion. Two Hindu women, Shivani and Soumya, who lived there, expressed fears about their children’s future and potential communal unrest. They demanded an immediate halt to such events and an investigation into the organisers. A formal complaint was lodged with the police on 22nd October 2025. Locals expressed concern that the construction of a church would lead to coerced conversions and submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini through BJP district president Jyoti Saini on Saturday, 25th October, 2025, led by former ward councillor Surender Pehalwan and Asha Rani. The memorandum noted that loud sounds from these events had disrupted children’s studies and affected the health of elderly residents.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory under this is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories selected are: Conversion of Minor and Pattern of targeting Hindus. 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 grooming or 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 grooming or 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 that 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 the existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker because it forms a clear case of proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The inclusion is based on the deliberate targeting of Hindu women and children by converted Christian individuals while they were alone. The conduct of the perpetrators in this incident demonstrates the hallmarks of religious grooming and brainwashing: repeated, subtle, and systematic attempts to instil disaffection towards the victims’ original faith while promoting adherence to a contrasting religion. The case qualifies as a hate crime against Hindus because the actions were motivated by animosity towards the victims’ religious identity. The perpetrators specifically targeted Hindu individuals with the intent to manipulate and indoctrinate them, exploiting the inherent trust and dependency present in theological interactions. By attempting to convert minors and vulnerable women in a segregated setting through psychological manipulation, instruction, and symbolic rituals, the perpetrators sought to undermine the victims’ right to practice and maintain their religion freely. Furthermore, the victims in this case included minors, making them particularly susceptible to coercion and influence. Their lack of maturity meant that any decision to convert could not have been made freely or with informed analysis. The perpetrators knowingly exploited this vulnerability, using subtle indoctrination and religious persuasion to attempt to sway the victims’ faith. The combination of targeting Hindu identity, exploiting trust, and manipulating vulnerable individuals clearly marks this incident as a case of religiously motivated hate, where the objective extended beyond individual belief and constituted a broader attempt to erode the religious identity of Hindus. Also, the conversion activities were being carried out under the guise of a prayer meeting. The act of inviting Hindus to a prayer gathering, while simultaneously conducting conversion activities, demonstrates that these meetings were not genuine religious sessions or community prayers. Instead, they were calculated efforts to exploit the trust and social cohesion within the Hindu community by disguising conversion attempts as routine gatherings. The Christian faith, by its very theological foundations, places a strong emphasis on proselytisation. In pursuit of conversion objectives, Christian evangelists often employ unethical means, ranging from psychological pressure and misinformation to inducements such as money or jobs. These are not random or isolated incidents, but premeditated efforts to undermine the Hindu faith, persuade Hindus to discard their own faith, and convert to Christianity. Such acts were deeply rooted in religious animosity towards Hindu victims, and thus, this case was added to the tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the prayer meetings started, only mentioning a time frame of 3 weeks. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date of the incident as 3 weeks before the date of news reporting- 5th October 2025.
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Unknown
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
unknown
Sources 
