Minor Hindu girl kidnapped, raped and pressured for conversion and marriage by two Muslim youths
Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, India 
12 June, 2023
Case Summary
In Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old minor Hindu girl was kidnapped, raped and pressured for religious conversion by two Muslim youths named Aqib and Kamil. According to reports, on June 13, 2023, the minor girl had gone to the market to buy some household goods. During this time, two Muslim accused, Aqib and Kamil, who belong to the same village, kidnapped her by stuffing a cloth in her mouth and took her to the Police Line intersection area. Two days later, on 15 June, she returned home in a traumatised condition and described her ordeal to her mother. She stated that Aqib had forced her to renounce Hinduism, embrace Islam, and marry him. She further explained that Kamil had stepped off the motorcycle midway, after which Aqib took her to another location and raped her. Her father lodged a report at Civil Lines police station on 18 June 2023, and the matter proceeded to trial. After examining the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, Special Judge of the POCSO Court, Dinesh Tiwari, convicted Aqib Mohammad Mian and sentenced him to ten years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of five thousand rupees. The second accused, Kamil, son of Mohammad Mian, was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
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 relevant here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Rape and sexual assault/harassment and Conversion of minor. 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was kidnapped, raped and pressured for religious conversion by two Muslim youths named Aqib and Kamil. This case is on the lines of patterns where Hindu females, especially minors, are targeted, kidnapped, raped and converted due to inherent animosity towards Hindus and their faith. Hindu girls are very vulnerable to crimes like rape and sexual assault at the hands of Muslim men. Often in such cases, as in this case, sexual violence serves 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. This is not random violence; it is systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. It is further important to note that the victim was a minor, meaning the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was absent ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not be able to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely exploited this vulnerability. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor without her volition. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that takes advantage of the child's naivety and dependence. 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 until they convert. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve them. 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. Disclaimer: Although Kamil was acquitted by the court due to a lack of evidence, it was reported that he was involved in the kidnapping, and the victim's statements also corroborate this. Therefore, the number of perpetrators has been recorded as two. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim's ordeal began when she was kidnapped by the accused on June 13, 2023. Thus, to document this case, we have used the date —June 13, 2023—as the date of the incident. While media coverage of the incident emerged on August 29, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Perpetrator held guilty by court
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
