Case Summary

In Kesupur Sathala village of the Bibinagar area, a Hindu transgender, Sita alias Sapna, was subjected to religious persecution, physical assault, and constant threats by a Muslim transgender named Rani and her associates, who attempted to forcibly convert her to Islam. Sita had been residing in the transgender dera (camp) in Kesupur Sathala for several years. Rani, whom Sita once accepted as her guru, follows Islam and began coercing Sita to abandon her Hindu faith and convert. When Sita resisted, Rani, along with her associates, began abusing her and assaulting her physically. On 2 December 2024, Rani and her group locked Sita in a room and brutally beat her with fists and kicks. The attackers attempted to force her into religious conversion through physical violence. During the ordeal, Sita managed to escape and went into hiding to protect herself from further harm. Despite fleeing, the threats continued. Rani and her group were calling Sita and issuing threats, demanding that she convert. Sita was living in fear, moving from place to place while trying to preserve her religious identity. Sita had given a written complaint to the police describing her ordeal and had urged police to take strict action against the accused.

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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 qualifies as a hate crime because the Hindu transgender victim, Sita alias Sapna, was deliberately targeted, harassed, and assaulted for her refusal to abandon her religious identity. The perpetrator, Rani, exploited her position as Sita’s guru to pressure her into converting to Islam. The abuse included verbal insults, threats, physical violence, and unlawful confinement—acts carried out specifically to coerce religious conversion. These actions were not random but rooted in animosity towards Sita’s Hindu faith, aiming to nullify her right to freely practise her religion. The intention was to force the victim to forsake her religious identity, making the coercion religiously motivated and discriminatory. Such cases fall under the category of hate crimes because they involve targeted harassment based on religion, where the victim is persecuted precisely for choosing to remain Hindu. Disclaimer: - Media reports do not mention the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. However, it is stated that the victim was locked in a room and physically assaulted on December 2, 2024. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have used an indicative date of December 2, 2024, as the date of the incident, even though the media reported this case on December 21, 2024. Hinduphobia Tracker records the date when the victims' ordeal begins rather than the date when it is reported by the media.