Dalit Hindu woman deceived, sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion by Muslim youth

Case ID : 9958426 | Location : Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 22 February, 2025

Case ID : 9958426

Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

22 February, 2025

Dalit Hindu woman deceived, sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion by Muslim youth

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, a 32-year-old Dalit Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth identified as Riyaz alias Rizzu Khan. According to reports, the accused was a resident of Kulpahar town in Mahoba district, Uttar Pradesh, while the victim was living at her parents' house for the last 10 years due to a dispute with her husband. During this period, she went to Rajnagar tehsil for some official work, where she got acquainted with the accused. Learning of her marital situation, the accused assured her that she should get a divorce, after which he would marry her. On this pretext, he began visiting her house and sexually exploited her for six months under the promise of marriage. The accused then started pressuring the victim to convert to Islam for the marriage to take place. Distressed by the coercion, the woman confided in her father, and together they approached the police to file a complaint. Acting on the report, the police registered a case under multiple sections, including the SC/ST Act and arrested the accused. He was produced before the court, which subsequently remanded him to judicial custody.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory under this is: Forced conversion before marriage. 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. The other sub-category relevant here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - 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 a hate crime. This case has been added to the tracker because a Dalit Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited, and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth. In this instance, although the Muslim accused did not conceal his identity, the nature of the relationship suggested that the Hindu woman was initially led to believe that her faith would not be a barrier to their romantic involvement. Trusting the accused’s assurances, she entered into the relationship, during which the Muslim man repeatedly sexually exploited her under the pretence of marriage. The psychological grooming and manipulation involved, combined with the deliberate targeting of a Hindu woman for exploitation and intended religious conversion, demonstrate a clear religious motive. In the Islamic faith, a marriage is deemed illegitimate if the non-Muslim partner does not convert to Islam, which was why she was pressured for conversion before marriage. The act of pressuring the Hindu victim to convert to Islam glaringly showcases the religious motivation behind this crime. Furthermore, the Hindu woman was sexually exploited with the intention of making the conversion process easier. Often in such cases, sexual violence is used as a manipulative tactic in order to induce conversion. Conversion, when not based on personal conviction but instead on external persuasion or coercion, is not simply about adopting another faith; it reveals the animosity that the Muslim perpetrator harboured towards the Hindu woman because of her religious identity. Such acts show that the victim was deliberately targeted and sexually exploited with the underlying agenda of religious conversion and abuse, making this a clear case of a religiously motivated crime. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. Although it was reported that the victim had been sexually exploited for nearly six months. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—February 23, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on August 23, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.