Hindu woman intoxicated, abducted and threatened for religious conversion by two Muslim individuals

Case ID : 9957eff | Location : Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 28 June, 2025

Case ID : 9957eff

Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

28 June, 2025

Hindu woman intoxicated, abducted and threatened for religious conversion by two Muslim individuals

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Hargarh village of the Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh, a married Hindu woman was abducted, threatened and given death threats by two Muslim individuals named Firoz and Shabana. According to reports, on June 29, the Hindu woman had come to her maternal home, where she was targeted by two Muslim individuals and their accomplice named Rakesh. The accused gave her intoxicants and took her to a deserted location. They threatened to kill her and pressurised her to convert to Islam. However, the victim, despite being drugged, somehow managed to escape and report the incident to the police. Based on the complaint, a case was registered by the police against the accused under relevant sections of forced conversion, attempt to murder, and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Police confirmed that all the accused would be sent to jail as part of the legal action.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was abducted, drugged, and given death threats by two Muslim individuals and their accomplice for religious conversion. The perpetrators displayed no regard for consent or human dignity as they resorted to coercive and predatory tactics to compel conversion. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Thus, for Muslims in this case, religious conversion of non-believers is seen as a badge of honour or religious duty. This religious impulse often leads individuals to resort to deceptive, coercive, or violent methods to achieve conversions. In such cases, consent doesn't matter anymore, only the end goal of conversion. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the victim's faith, in this case Hinduism, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.