Minor Hindu children forced to perform Namaz under guise of yoga by Muslim school teacher
Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh, India 
23 October, 2025
Case Summary
A Muslim teacher forced Hindu students to perform Islamic prayers at a government primary school in Devari village, about 12 kilometres from Burhanpur district headquarters in Madhya Pradesh. The teacher, identified as Jaboor Ahmad Tadvi, reportedly made the children perform namaz under the guise of yoga exercises. The incident came to light during the Diwali holidays when some children repeated the same actions at home, leading their parents to question them. Upon learning the truth, nearly two dozen parents reached the school and filed a complaint against the teacher. District Education Officer (DEO) Santosh Singh Solanki visited the school, recorded the students’ statements, and suspended the teacher following the complaint lodged by the parents and the members of the Hindu Jagran Manch. The Hindu Jagran Manch officials also arrived at the school to ensure proper investigation. Meanwhile, the accused teacher denied the charges, claiming that he was conducting yoga sessions, not teaching namaz. He argued that he was making students perform ‘Shashthasan’ from the Surya Namaskar sequence, which involves kneeling and bowing like a rabbit, and that it was misunderstood as a namaz posture. Despite his defence, the DEO maintained the suspension order, stating that the decision was taken after reviewing complaints and preliminary statements. The Hindu Jagran Manch and parents demanded a fair inquiry, asserting that Islamic indoctrination of Hindu children under the pretext of yoga is unacceptable in a government institution.
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 category under this is: Conversion of minor. 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 which 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 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 included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because it demonstrates a deliberate and targeted attempt at religious indoctrination of Hindu minors through subtle manipulation and abuse of fiduciary authority. The teacher, a Muslim man entrusted with the education and moral development of young Hindu students, misused his position to impose Islamic rituals upon them under the guise of yoga practice. This act, though presented as benign, reflects a calculated form of predatory proselytisation where the victim’s trust and lack of discernment are exploited for religious conversion. It is important to understand that the victims in this case were children, which is a critical element in understanding its gravity. Minors are legally and psychologically incapable of giving informed consent to any act of religious transformation. Their vulnerability arises from their age, their dependence on adult authority, and their inherent trust in figures such as teachers. When such a figure manipulates that trust to instil practices belonging to another faith, it constitutes a direct assault on the child’s cultural and religious identity. This form of grooming, disguised as education, aims to gradually normalise spiritual submission and weaken the child’s bond with their native faith. By familiarising impressionable children with Islamic postures and prayers from an early age, the teacher was not merely teaching movements but conditioning them to accept Islamic practices as normal and spiritually valid — thereby preparing them psychologically for potential conversion in the future. This incident also qualifies as a hate crime against Hindus because it originates from a position of religious hostility and seeks to erode Hindu belief through covert indoctrination. The attempt to disguise Islamic prayer as a yoga posture betrays an intent to deceive and spiritually displace Hindu children within a government institution, which is expected to remain religiously neutral. The very setting, a public school, magnifies the violation, for it transforms a place of learning into an instrument of religious infiltration. By exploiting minors and targeting the children of a specific community, the act transcends mere misconduct and assumes the character of religiously motivated aggression. It symbolises an attempt to weaken the cultural continuity of the Hindu community by implanting alien ritual practices in its youngest members. Such conduct, therefore, is neither accidental nor trivial but part of a larger pattern of systematic religious grooming, deserving classification as predatory proselytisation and as a hate crime against Hindus. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date on which the hate speech against Hindus was made. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
