Hindu man and his family targeted with threats and inducements to convert to Islam in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh
Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, India 
11 August, 2025
Case Summary
In Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man and his family faced coercion to convert to Islam by Muslim men. The accused offered monetary inducements to convert to Islam. The victim, Babbu, informed the police that four Muslim men—Fahad, Zaidi, Mohsin, and one unidentified individual—had damaged the boundary wall and house belonging to his family. The group pressured Babbu and his family to abandon Hindu dharma and accept Islam. The accused attempted to lure the family by offering ₹5 lakh and the construction of a permanent house if they converted. When Babbu and his family firmly refused, the accused hurled abuses and issued death threats. Acting swiftly, police registered an FIR in the matter. One accused, Zaid, was arrested, while search operations were underway to apprehend the remaining three accused.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category relevant in this case 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. The other sub-category selected is - Conversion/attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. This incident clearly reflects harassment and coercion rooted in the victim’s religious identity. The perpetrators damaged the boundary wall and house of Babbu’s family to intimidate them, and then pressured them to abandon Hindu dharma and accept Islam. When the family resisted, the accused used verbal abuse and issued death threats. Such acts demean, humiliate, and psychologically torment Hindu victims simply for choosing to remain in their faith. The coercion here directly targeted the family’s Hindu identity and attempted to nullify their right to freely practice their religion. The threats and harassment were not random but specifically designed to break their religious will, making this a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus. Alongside harassment, the accused sought to exploit the economic vulnerabilities of the Hindu family by offering ₹5 lakh and the construction of a permanent house in exchange for religious conversion. This represents predatory proselytisation through inducement, where material benefits are dangled to entice victims into abandoning their faith. Such inducement is not neutral or benign—it is rooted in the discriminatory intent of disenfranchising Hindus from their religion. By targeting Babbu’s family with financial offers conditioned on conversion, the perpetrators aimed to exploit their socio-economic condition for religious gain. This deliberate exploitation of economic conditions to secure a conversion makes the crime not only exploitative but also explicitly motivated by hostility toward the victim’s Hindu identity. Hence, this case is included in the hate crime database. Disclaimer: While the Hindu man and his family were targeted, the exact number of family members has not been mentioned in the available sources. Hence, for documentation purposes, the victim count has been recorded as 1.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
