Minor Hindu girl molested, raped, forced to marry, and convert to Islam by Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 90a0b8a | Location : Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 31 December, 2023

Case ID : 90a0b8a

Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India

31 December, 2023

Minor Hindu girl molested, raped, forced to marry, and convert to Islam by Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Nebua Naurangia village, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was raped, forced into marriage, and coerced into converting to Islam by a Muslim man. According to a news report, the victim was a student studying in grade 8. She was constantly harassed and molested by the man while travelling to and from school. Terrified by the ordeal, she stopped attending school for a year and avoided leaving the house, making various excuses. When her father insisted she return to school, she broke down in tears and revealed the harassment she had suffered at the hands of the accused. She also disclosed that the accused had raped her multiple times when she was alone at home. The accused forcibly gave her two mobile phones to communicate with him and threatened her in various ways if she refused to answer his calls. He repeatedly pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. Following this, her father submitted a written complaint against the accused. The police took the matter seriously and registered a case under sections related to rape, the POCSO Act, and criminal intimidation. Inspector Ramsahay Chauhan confirmed that a case had been registered, and an investigation was underway. The police assured the victim's family that the accused would be arrested soon.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of- Predatory proselytisation. Under this, 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. In this case, the Hindu minor girl was continuously harassed by the perpetrator. She was accosted and molested on her way to school. This itself is a severe form of intimidation. Then she was put through unfathomable physical torture by her perpetrator. The purpose behind the violence employed was to coerce the victim to abandon her faith and accept Islam and perform Nikah with the accused. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu girl. Further, the central aim of the perpetrators was to disenfranchise the Hindu girl from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime. Disclaimer: It should be noted that none of the media reports on this case specify the exact date when the victim’s ordeal began. The earliest reference is from a year earlier, when she stopped attending school to avoid the perpetrator. Since Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the ordeal began rather than when it was reported, we have treated the incident date as one year prior to its reporting. Accordingly, March 11, 2024, has been used as a placeholder, as the media reported the case on March 11, 2025.