Hindu woman and daughter coerced into conversion in Uttar Pradesh, mirroring organised pattern of proselytisation in the region

Case ID : 99580ee | Location : Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 25 July, 2025

Case ID : 99580ee

Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, India

25 July, 2025

Hindu woman and daughter coerced into conversion in Uttar Pradesh, mirroring organised pattern of proselytisation in the region

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Balrampur district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman and her daughter were lured and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man named Ismail. The victim’s husband, Murali, a native of Khadgaura Babhnapurwa village in Balrampur district, had migrated to Mumbai for work. During his absence, Ismail, a resident of Puraina, established contact with Murali’s family. Over time, he gained their trust and befriended them. Murali stated that Ismail manipulated and coerced his wife and daughter into adopting Islam. The conversion was carried out with the active support of Gasdi Nagar Panchayat councillor Jalaluddin and the local village head, Shakeel Ahmad. Ismail later took the woman and children with him, cutting off their ties with Murali. When Murali opposed this, he was abused and threatened with death. The police arrested Ismail and charged him under sections of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2021. The investigation was ongoing with further legal action to follow against Jalaluddin and Shakeel Ahmad based on the findings. Police also confirmed that Jalaluddin has been promoting conversion activities in the region in a manner similar to Jamaluddin alias Chhangur Baba, who was earlier arrested for running a religious conversion racket. The mention of Chhangur Baba by the police in this case is significant, as it points to a recurring pattern and a deeper link to a larger, well-organised religious conversion racket. This case appears to mirror the methods and motives used by Chhangur Baba, who ran a vast conversion racket across India. The Uttar Pradesh ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) had dismantled this organised network, uncovering its systematic operation aimed at targeting and converting Hindu individuals, particularly women and minors, to Islam. According to the investigation, Chhangur Baba provided financial incentives to Muslim men to lure Hindu women, often under false identities by posing as Hindus, and then pressure them into conversion. Once converted, these women were married off through Nikah ceremonies arranged by Chhangur Baba himself. Authorities also discovered that Chhangur Baba had published a book titled Shijra-e-Tayyaba, intended as a manual to propagate Islam. The ATS investigation revealed that his network operated on a structured incentive model: Rs15–16 lakh was paid for converting Brahmin, Sikh, or Kshatriya women; Rs10–12 lakh for OBC women; and Rs8–10 lakh for those from other castes. He, along with his wife, was arrested on 5th July 2025. The ATS confirmed that the gang had received nearly Rs100 crore in foreign funds to facilitate these illegal conversions across India. Members of his own family were reportedly involved in the operation. The Hinduphobia Tracker had documented multiple cases where Chhangur Baba was involved. He used coercion to convert Hindu individuals to Islam. In one of the cases, Chhangur encouraged a Muslim man named Meraj to lure a Hindu woman named Aarti by posing as a Hindu. Afterwards, Chhangur, along with Meraj, forcibly converted her to Islam and conducted her Nikah according to Islamic customs. Another case involved a Hindu man named Harjeet, who was forcibly converted to Islam by Chhangur. The accused had offered Harjeet incentives and subjected him to harassment and had filed false cases against him in an attempt to persuade him to convert to Islam. Similarly, in another case, in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man named Sanchit and his wife were lured to convert to Islam with incentives by the Muslim Peer Chhangur. Both victims were also subjected to death threats and were harassed with false cases for refusing to convert. Another such instance was reported in Faridabad, Haryana, where a minor Hindu girl was brainwashed and forcibly converted to Islam by her Muslim neighbours who were part of a Muslim gang run by the Muslim peer Chhangur. After her conversion, her Hindu identity was erased; she was given a Muslim name, compelled to wear a burqa, forced to perform Islamic rituals, and fed meat against her beliefs. She was horrifically exploited sexually, blackmailed using obscene videos, and pushed into prostitution. In another such case of a Hindu woman from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man. The accused pretended to be Hindu and had manipulated and brainwashed her into converting to Islam. The victim had been missing since 2019. The accused was also linked to the Islamic cleric Peer Chhangur. In another such case, a Hindu woman named Rashmi (name changed) from Karnataka was trafficked to Saudi Arabia and subjected to years of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse as part of a systematic religious conversion racket operated under the influence of Islamic Peer Jalaluddin alias Chhangur Baba. Under false pretences of marriage and employment, the woman was entrapped, manipulated, and eventually transported across international borders. In another such case, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a romantic relationship and subsequently married by a Muslim man named Tabish Asgar. The accused had posed as a Hindu youth while deceiving the woman into a relationship and married her as per Hindu rituals. After marriage, the accused exerted pressure on the victim to renounce Hinduism and adopt Islam, but was not successful. He then took her to Muslim Peer Chhangur alias Jalaluddin, who is known for converting several Hindus to Islam by use of force, deception, and coercion. There, she was also coerced and enticed with incentives to adopt Islam. In another case, in Ranipokhari, Uttarakhand, a young Hindu woman became the target of an organised Muslim conversion gang who attempted to forcibly convert her to Islam through online grooming, emotional pressure, and inducements. This conversion gang was connected to Chhangur Peer.

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 relevant here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Pattern of targeting Hindus. 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 other 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 and her daughter were lured, manipulated, and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man. This is often seen in cases of predatory proselytisation, where initial contact is established under the guise of friendship or support, and then gradually escalates when the victim resists. When such soft tactics fail, perpetrators resort to coercion, threats, or outright intimidation. Even in this case, a similar pattern was observed: initial befriending the victim's family, followed by deliberate manipulation and coercion to induce religious conversion. Furthermore, the accused took the woman and her daughter away, thereby severing their connection from their Hindu identity and any social or familial support system. This was meant to isolate the victim so as to mentally subjugate her, thereby cementing her conversion to Islam. When the woman’s husband opposed this and tried to intervene, he was abused and given death threats. This further proves that the accused was fully aware of the family’s Hindu identity and was prepared to use violence to silence any opposition. 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. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Police, while investigating, hinted at the possibility of a larger conversion racket being at play and noted a pattern similar to the activities linked to Peer Chhangur Baba. This suggests that this was not an isolated case, but part of a bigger conversion racket. Though a direct operational link was still under investigation, the similarities in method and motive align with previous documented cases involving Chhangur Baba, whose methods were aimed at targeting the Hindu community through deceit, psychological manipulation, brainwashing, and coercion for religious conversion. This elevates the incident from an individual case to one with serious communal and religious implications. Investigations have revealed that Peer Chhangur operated a vast conversion racket and incentivised Muslim men to lure or coerce Hindu women into Islam. The incentives were caste-based, with Brahmin, Sikh, and Kshatriya women fetching the highest rates. This exposes a calculated, caste-aware, hate-driven campaign of predatory proselytisation aimed at dismantling Hindu society from within. The Chhangur Baba case is not merely an individual crime, but a manifestation of a larger ideological campaign aimed at the gradual Islamisation of India. This agenda seeks to erode Hindu identity and alter the country's demographic and cultural fabric. Muslim extremists often harbour deep-seated animosity towards Hindus and view India as a Hindu collectivity that must be dismantled or subdued. The ideological roots of this mindset go back to the very basis of the Partition of India, which was that the Muslims believed that Islam was a nation unto itself, which could not survive with a Hindu collectivity like India. Historically, Islamic conquests have not always relied solely on military force; they have also operated through psychological coercion, forced conversions, and cultural erasure. This case reflects the continuation of that same mindset rooted in religious animosity. Although the primary victim is a Hindu adult with the legal agency to make personal decisions, the circumstances of this case clearly indicate coercion and religious targeting. The fact that her husband formally lodged a complaint, that the police arrested the accused under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2021, and that investigators have linked the incident to the broader pattern of conversions associated with the Chhangur Baba case, all underscore that this was not a matter of free choice. Instead, it was part of a deliberate, religiously motivated operation targeting Hindus for conversion. These factors establish the incident as a hate crime, warranting its inclusion in the hate crime database. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the victims came into contact with the accused or when the victims were converted. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date of the incident based on when it was reported in the media.