Minor Hindu girl and sister lured away by Muslim man; forcibly converted to Islam, married in a mosque, and coerced into prostitution

Case ID : 9958315 | Location : West Bengal, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 12 August, 2025

Case ID : 9958315

West Bengal, India

12 August, 2025

Minor Hindu girl and sister lured away by Muslim man; forcibly converted to Islam, married in a mosque, and coerced into prostitution

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Pattern of targeting Hindu minors

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

A minor Hindu girl and her sister from West Bengal were lured away to Nawada, Bihar, by a Muslim man named Junam Hussain. The accused enticed the victims into a love trap. Subsequently, the minor girl was forcibly converted to Islam and coerced into Nikah in a mosque with the accused, Junam. She was then forced into prostitution. During this ordeal, the victim also underwent unsafe abortions. Media reports confirmed that Junam had lured the victim to Bihar under the pretence of an orchestra job. In reality, when she arrived in Nawada, he forced her into prostitution and made her available to his clients for Rs 2,500 per night. Reports also stated that Junam was part of a gang that had similarly trapped more than nine girls from various parts of India, drawing them into this sex-trafficking network. Following this, Junam was arrested as part of a major Bihar police operation named ‘Naya Savera’. This crackdown was launched following instructions from Priyank Kanoongo, Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), who called for swift action to rescue the victims and bring the perpetrators to justice. Under this operation, Saran police in Bihar rescued ten minor girls from four different orchestra groups in the district. The rescued girls included six from West Bengal, one from Odisha, one from Jharkhand, and two from Bihar. The operation took place on 13th August 2025, under the supervision of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kumar Ashish. Along with Junam, police arrested his six accomplices, namely, Neeraj Yadav, Talib Khan, Shubham Kumar, Ankit Kumar, Mohammad Bittu Hashmi, and Chandan Kumar Tiwari. The police were questioning all of them to find leads on any others involved in this conversion and trafficking network. The arrested individuals were to be taken to the district court for further legal proceedings. Following this, three teams from the Mahila Thana (women’s police station) and one from Isuapur station conducted simultaneous raids on four venues: Rahul Orchestra, Sangeeta Orchestra, Muskaan Orchestra, and Vipin Orchestra, all operating in the Masrakh and Isuapur areas. SSP Ashish stated that the girls had been tortured and forced to dance against their will. The police had registered an FIR at the women’s police station and were continuing further raids to apprehend any absconding suspects with the intent to dismantle the trafficking gangs permanently.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. Within this, the tertiary categories selected are- 'Conversion of minor', 'Rape and sexual assault/harassment' and 'Pattern of targeting Hindu minors'. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime. The other subcategory selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Forced to do nikah. 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. In this case, it is important to note that the victims include a minor Hindu girl. This demonstrates that the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion or being in a romantic relationship with an adult. The Muslim perpetrator, Junam, purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the minor victim. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus. The initial act of luring the Hindu girls away from their homes in West Bengal to Bihar under false pretences marked a deliberate targeting of vulnerable Hindu individuals. By selecting a minor Hindu girl as the victim, the Muslim perpetrator established intent to undermine her religious and cultural identity from the outset. Upon arrival in Bihar, the minor girl was subjected to forced religious conversion. The act of coercing her to renounce her faith and adopt Islam was not merely an isolated attack on her personal beliefs but constituted an assault on her Hindu identity. This conversion was compounded by the subsequent Nikah, an Islamic marriage ceremony performed in a mosque, which further entrenched her forced assimilation into a faith not her own. The imposition of marriage within a religious context designed to erase her Hindu background highlights the anti-Hindu nature of the crime, as it sought to sever her ties with her Hindu identity, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Following the forced conversion and marriage, the exploitation escalated into trafficking, with the minor girl being sold into prostitution for Rs 2,500 per client. During this time, she also underwent unsafe abortions. This act demonstrated a systematic commodification and dehumanisation of the Hindu victim, using her for profit while continuing her psychological, physical, and religious subjugation. By putting a Hindu girl into prostitution post-conversion, the Muslim offender compounded the violence and humiliation she suffered, stripping her of agency and safety. The details revealed that this was not an isolated incident. The same nexus targeted other minor girls, subjecting them to a similar cycle of deception and forcing them into human trafficking. This showcases the intensity and premeditated nature of the crime. Given that this incident meets multiple parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database. Disclaimer: In this case, although there were both Muslim and Hindu perpetrators involved in the sex trafficking gang, the Hinduphobia Tracker records crimes against Hindus perpetrated by non-Hindus. The focus here is on the religiously motivated aspects: the minor Hindu girl was lured away, abducted, forcibly converted, married, and subsequently sold into prostitution. For documentation purposes, we are recording Junam as the main perpetrator, since his actions constituted a religiously motivated crime. We acknowledge that Junam was part of a larger trafficking group, but this record is limited to his direct involvement in the targeted abuse of the Hindu victim. Therefore, we are recording the perpetrator count as '1'. Although police confirmed that multiple girls, at least ten, were found and rescued during the operation, we have identified only two Hindu victims in this case: the minor girl and her sister. Therefore, the victim count is recorded as '2'. Media reports did not specify the exact date when the victims' ordeal began. However, they noted that the Bihar Police operation and the rescue of the girls occurred on 13th August 2025. For the purpose of documentation, we are using 13th August 2025 as the indicative date, even though the case was reported by the media on 14th August 2025. The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date when the victims' ordeal begins rather than the date it is reported in the media.