Hindu girl abducted by Muslim man, forcefully converted to Islam after marriage
Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India 
31 December, 2022
Case Summary
A Hindu girl from the Kandhai area in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, was abducted, married, and forcibly converted to Islam. According to the reports, the girl had been lured away from her home by a local youth named Miraj in 2023. At that time, she was a minor. In 2024, when she turned an adult, the accused took her to Sultanpur, where they had a court marriage. On May 25, 2025, the accused took the victim to his maternal uncle's house in Israel, where they performed Nikah (marriage as per Islamic rituals). Following her marriage, the girl faced mistreatment and physical abuse at the hands of her husband and his family when she objected to the forced conversion. Eventually, she was beaten and thrown out of the house in Lucknow. The girl travelled directly from Lucknow to the Kandhai police station and filed a complaint on June 30, 2025. Acting on her statement, the police launched an immediate investigation. On July 2, the police arrested seven individuals: Miraj, the victim’s husband from Hardatpur; Maulvi Shamim of Dohari Takiya, who performed the Nikah; Firoz, the victim’s brother-in-law; Maqsood, her father-in-law; Israel, her maternal uncle from Dhammaur in Sultanpur; Akram from Setapur, Antu; and the victim’s sister-in-law, whose name was not disclosed. All were presented before a court and subsequently sent to jail. Superintendent of Police Dr. Anil Kumar confirmed the arrests.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The First sub-category under this category 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. The second sub-category in this case is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. 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. 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 proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The second primary category in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the sub-category is: Forced conversion after marriage. The tertiary category under this sub-category is: Forced to do Nikah In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert to Islam after marriage. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. The girl was abducted from her home when she was a minor, forced into a religious conversion against her will, and subsequently coerced into a nikah. The pressure to convert, preceded by a court marriage and followed by a religious nikah ceremony, demonstrates that religious identity was central to the abuse. Miraj lured the girl into a relationship, married her under civil law, and subsequently subjected her to an Islamic religious ceremony against her will. This sequence reflects a common pattern where trust is first cultivated and then exploited to induce the abandonment of the victim’s religion. While the conversion was not overtly violent in its method, the underlying manipulation and the later coercion leading to her complaint point to a strategic effort to shift her religious allegiance, thereby qualifying as religious grooming. Also, the girl entered a court marriage, presumably with the belief that religion would not be an obstacle. However, once the marriage had taken place, she was pressured to undergo a nikah and convert. Upon her resistance, she was subjected to mistreatment and ultimately expelled, indicating not only that her consent was absent in the religious conversion but that the relationship itself had been structured to enable her religious subjugation. In many such cases, Muslim men deliberately lure Hindu girls into romantic relationships by hiding their religious identity or pretending to be Hindu. Once trust is gained, they push for marriage and later compel the girl to convert to Islam. After the conversion is complete and the girl is fully isolated from her family, community, and original faith, the relationship is often abruptly broken off. These girls are not treated as genuine partners, but rather as instruments for fulfilling a religious agenda. The purpose here is not personal but a ploy with an ultimate goal to alienate the victim from her Hindu faith and assimilate her into a different faith. Once that goal is achieved, the victim is frequently discarded, as her "use" in this ideological mission is considered complete. This pattern stems from a supremacist interpretation of Abrahamic religious doctrine, where those who do not follow the same faith are viewed as inferior. In such a worldview, religious conversion is not an invitation but an obligation. The non-adherents are not respected as different, but are dehumanised until they conform. As a result, Hindus are often targeted not for personal reasons but because of their religious identity. The violence, manipulation, and betrayal involved in these cases are not isolated acts of cruelty but manifestations of an underlying ideological hostility towards Hindus and their faith. This is why such cases must be recognised and documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The victims are not just exploited individuals—they are Hindus targeted for being Hindu. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began when she met the accused in 2023, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—January 1, 2023—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on July 2, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported. Furthur, in our database, the victim has been recorded as a minor, as she was underage at the time her ordeal began. Although she is now an adult, Hinduphobia Tracker documents cases based on the timeline of when the victim’s suffering started, not when the incident came to light. Accordingly, she has been categorised as a minor in this case. Ask ChatGPT
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 5 to 10
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
