Minor Hindu schoolgirl coerced for religious conversion by Muslim youth and his sister, pressured with death threats
Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, India 
10 November, 2025
Case Summary
A 16-year-old Hindu schoolgirl was subjected to sustained harassment, death threats, and pressure for religious conversion by a Muslim youth and his sister in the Namli police station area of Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. The perpetrator, Mubariq Shah, whose minor sister was the victim’s school friend, initiated contact after the victim began visiting their home. Over a period of three months, the accused persistently pressured the minor to accept his advances and convert her religion for marriage, communicating these demands both directly and through his sister. When the victim consistently refused his proposals and blocked him on Snapchat, a social messaging platform, the accused escalated his coercion by issuing death threats against both the minor and her father. Following these threats, the victim reported the entire sequence of events to her family, who subsequently assisted her in filing a formal complaint at Namli police station. Local Hindu organisation representatives, having monitored the accused’s activities, apprehended the youth with assistance from village residents and presented him to the Namli police authorities. Officials registered a comprehensive case under multiple legal provisions, including Section 74 and 351(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Section 7/8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, Section 3/5 of the Religion Conversion Act, and relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Station House Officer Gayatri Soni confirmed the registration of the case and stated that investigative procedures were continuing while both the accused and his sister faced judicial proceedings.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The first subcategory under this 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. The second subcategory under this is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories under this 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 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 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. Another primary category in this case is: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory under this is: Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker because it demonstrates a systematic campaign of religious persecution against a Hindu minor, employing two distinct but complementary methodologies that constitute predatory proselytisation. The perpetrators executed a prolonged strategy that began with psychological manipulation through the exploitation of a trusted peer relationship, establishing initial access under benign circumstances. This approach corresponds precisely with the documented pattern of proselytisation through grooming, where perpetrators methodically exploit emotional connections and social dependencies to create pathways for religious influence. The subsequent transition to overt threats and intimidation represents the second phase of this coordinated effort, fulfilling the criteria for conversion through harassment and coercion. The operational methodology reveals a sophisticated understanding of social dynamics, beginning with the sister's friendship providing legitimate cover for the brother's initial interactions. This strategic exploitation of relational trust represents a calculated form of psychological manipulation, where the victim's social network became the primary vehicle for religious pressure. The three-month duration of this campaign indicates persistent determination rather than spontaneous misconduct, with demands for religious conversion forming the consistent objective throughout the evolving tactics. The escalation to death threats against both the minor and her parent demonstrates the perpetrators' readiness to employ extreme intimidation and attack when psychological pressure proved insufficient, revealing the fundamental religious animosity driving their actions. What distinguishes this incident as specifically anti-Hindu persecution rather than ordinary criminal harassment is the inseparable connection between the social manipulation and the religious objective. The perpetrators consistently intertwined personal advances with demands for religious abandonment, making the victim's Hindu identity the central obstacle in their interactions. Also, the accused had the mobile numbers of Hindu girls in his phone. This pattern reflects broader documented phenomena where Hindu girls face targeted campaigns that combine personal grooming with religious coercion, treating their faith as a disposable attribute rather than an integral aspect of their identity. The involvement of multiple perpetrators, including female family members, further indicates social normalisation of such predatory behaviour within certain communities. Because the victim is a minor, the element of genuine consent is legally and morally nullified, which magnifies the culpability of the perpetrator. Minors lack the cognitive and social autonomy to resist sustained manipulation, and the gradual normalisation of the suitor’s demands — from compliments to conversion to marriage — is precisely the process by which grooming converts superficial acquiescence into coerced compliance. The invocation of conversion as a precondition for marriage, coupled with threats to life, transforms the young girl’s religious identity into the very object that is being contested. Action taken by authorities acknowledges the multifaceted nature of this crime, with charges spanning from the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act to the religion conversion law. This comprehensive legal response recognises that such incidents represent not merely individual offences but systematic attacks on religious freedom and personal security. The case exemplifies how religious hostility operates through social networks and relational manipulation, exploiting trust and emotional connections to advance sectarian objectives. Its documentation serves to illuminate the complex mechanisms through which Hinduphobia manifests in intimate social contexts, where persecution wears the mask of friendship and religious eradication presents itself as romantic interest. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date on which the ordeal of the victim started. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
