Hindu girl lured, raped, and coerced into conversion by Muslim man through blackmail and threats

Case ID : 9958336 | Location : Almora, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 3 August, 2022

Case ID : 9958336

Almora, Uttarakhand, India

3 August, 2022

Hindu girl lured, raped, and coerced into conversion by Muslim man through blackmail and threats

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Blackmailed to convert

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In the Dwarahat area of Almora, Uttarakhand, a Hindu girl was lured, raped, and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man named Samirul Islam. According to reports, the accused was a resident of Delhi, and he befriended the Hindu girl in 2022 through Instagram. He seduced the girl and raped her multiple times in Delhi. He also recorded obscene videos of her during the assault, through which he blackmailed her and pressured her for religious conversion. He also physically assaulted her and threatened to make the videos public if she did not comply. The victim informed her father about her ordeal, who then brought her back to their village for safety. The accused again contacted the girl and threatened her to either convert to Islam or give Rs 10 lakhs, else he would make the videos viral. The father of the victim approached the police and filed a complaint against the accused to ensure the safety of his daughter. As of the date of writing this report, the accused was arrested by the police, and an investigation was ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first sub-category selected here is - - Brainwashed and/or groomed. Within it, the tertiary category selected is- Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 hate crimes. The second sub-category selected 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 third sub-category selected here is - Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was lured, raped, and coerced into religious conversion by the Muslim accused. The perpetrator befriended the girl, gained her trust, and then raped her, while pressuring her to convert to Islam. The accused also physically assaulted her and blackmailed her in order to induce conversion. This clearly demonstrated that the perpetrator's actions were aimed at making the victim completely abandon her own Hindu faith. This instance makes it clear that the entire incident was a premeditated effort to convert a Hindu woman to Islam, driven by deep-seated religious animosity towards her Hindu identity. Such acts are rooted in longstanding hostility and prejudice against the Hindu victim and her religious beliefs and identity, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. In such cases, physical assault and sexual violence often serve a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention is to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she can be converted. 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. Additionally, the accused threatened to leak her obscene videos online to further pressure her into conversion. These threats were not random acts of violence—they were directly tied to her refusal to give up her Hindu faith. Such acts are not merely personal crimes; they are rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim, thereby qualifying them as religiously motivated hate crimes. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim's ordeal began when she got acquainted with the accused in 2022, though no exact date or month is provided. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—August 4, 2022—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on August 4, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.