Minor Hindu girl tortured and blackmailed into religious conversion and nikah; compelled to offer namaz, eat beef and undergo halala
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
17 August, 2020
Case Summary
A Hindu woman was forcefully converted to Islam and subjected to prolonged sexual violence, coercion, and physical abuse in Lucknow. She was compelled to follow Islamic rituals and also eat beef against her will. Her ordeal started when she was a minor. Parul Kashyap, a resident of the city, filed a formal police complaint naming her husband, Mohammad Nazil, as the primary perpetrator, along with his brothers Adil and Qadir, and an associate named Mohammad Salim Ghazi. The complaint detailed a pattern of abuse beginning when Parul was a minor. According to the statement, Parul became acquainted with Nazil during high school. During this period, Nazil committed rape and recorded explicit videos of her without consent. These recordings were used to blackmail her into marriage. Before the marriage, Nazil compelled her to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam. The conversion was carried out on 18 August 2020 in Natuwa. After the marriage, Parul reported continuous physical and sexual assaults by Nazil and his relatives. She stated that Nazil regularly brought prostitutes into their home and created an atmosphere of fear and humiliation. His brothers, Adil and Qadir, made repeated sexual advances towards her. Nazil also pressured her to undergo halala with his brothers. In one of the reported incidents, on 4 April 2025, Nazil attempted to strangle her. On 14 July 2024, he struck her with a walker and strangled her until she lost consciousness. These incidents were part of a sustained pattern of control and violence. Parul gave birth to a daughter, Tinkle, on 21 January 2022. Nazil refused to provide financial support or permit her to work, obstructing her efforts to care for the child. Parul further testified that Nazil forced both her and her minor daughter to consume alcohol and Corex syrup. He also behaved inappropriately toward the child. Parul was compelled to take part in religious rituals against her will, including offering namaz and eating beef. These actions, she stated, were intended to erase her cultural and religious identity. Nazil and his family confined Parul in the home and threatened to kill her family members if she approached the authorities. Following the death of her father, Parul remained silent for a period due to her family's precarious condition. Parul submitted medical documentation and photographs as supporting evidence of the violence to the authorities. She formally requested the authorities to take strict legal action against Mohammad Nazil, Adil, Qadir, and Mohammad Salim Ghazi.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected here is- Predatory Proselytisation. Under this, the first sub-category chosen is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, and the tertiary category selected within this is- Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 sub-category selected here is- Harassment, threat, 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 primary category selected for this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The secondary category under this is: Forced conversion before marriage. Further, there are three tertiary categories relevant within this: the first is: Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices, the second is: Forced to do Nikah, and the third is: Forced to eat beef. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. 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, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. 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 the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. The second sub-category selected under the above primary category is- Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The case of Parul Kashyap presents a structured pattern of coercion wherein a Hindu woman is systematically isolated, manipulated, and subjected to religious and psychological pressures following an intimate association with a Muslim man. It corresponds to an identifiable subset of criminal activity that involves the intersection of sexual violence, religious imposition, and identity erasure. The initial act, rape committed by Mohammad Nazil when Parul was still a minor, is not only a criminal offence under Indian law but also situates the entire foundation of the relationship in a context devoid of mutual consent or emotional parity. To have engaged in a sexual act with a minor, regardless of the nature of the acquaintance or proximity, constitutes statutory rape. The victim's inability, by legal and moral standards, to offer any form of valid consent marks the beginning of a long trajectory of domination and control. What followed that initial crime was not an isolated incident, but the establishment of a durable structure of coercion. The accused recorded the assault and used the video to blackmail the victim to abandon her Hindu faith, convert to Islam and perform nikah with him. This method of entrapment, wherein a perpetrator uses evidence of prior abuse as a mechanism for continued subjugation, effectively eliminates the possibility of autonomous decision-making on the part of the victim. Further, the religious angle of the crime became more apparent when the Muslim man forced the woman to follow Islamic practices like wearing a burqa, reading namaz and eating beef. Forcing a Hindu to consume beef is not only a profound disrespect to their religious beliefs but also constitutes a religiously motivated hate crime. In Hinduism, cows are revered as sacred animals, symbolising life and sustenance, and the act of consuming beef is considered highly sacrilegious by many Hindus. Therefore, compelling a Hindu to eat beef goes beyond mere dietary imposition; it is an intentional violation of their religious principles and an assault on their cultural and spiritual identity. In the broader context of hate crimes, forcing someone to engage in behaviour that is expressly forbidden or offensive in their religion is a clear manifestation of religious intolerance. It demonstrates a blatant disregard for the victim's rights to practice their faith freely. Here, the actions of the perpetrator clearly point towards the deep disdain he harboured for Hindus and their religious beliefs. It is also important to mention here that the perpetrator not only victimised the Hindu woman but also targeted her minor child. Parul testified that Nazil forced both her and her minor daughter to consume alcohol and Corex syrup. He also behaved inappropriately toward the child. This was nothing but a calculated arm-twisting tactic, meant to break the victim’s resistance, humiliate her, and ensure compliance through fear, manipulation. By involving the child, the perpetrator was weaponising vulnerability to further subjugate the Hindu woman and her family. Such behaviour strongly reflects a pattern of targeted religious violence, further reinforcing this case as one of religiously motivated coercion and hate-driven exploitation. What further makes this a specific instance of religiously motivated crimes is that Nazil also made his brothers and acquaintances sexually exploit Payal. The deliberate targeting of religious symbols and practices, including diet, clothing, and prayer, serves not merely as religious conversion but as identity nullification. These acts are not incidental habits acquired under cultural influence but serve as tools of dominion, by which the Hindu victim is compelled to disown her origin, community ties, and spiritual orientation. This act of deception is an affront to the victim's religious and cultural identity and is an insidious form of religious intolerance that seeks to exploit and undermine the very fabric of the victim's community, which is why this case has been documented in the hate tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began when she was a minor, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used the date 18 August 2020, as this is the date when the victim underwent religious conversion. While media coverage of the incident emerged on July 13, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 2
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
