Minor Hindu girl lured away and forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh
Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, India 
17 September, 2025
Case Summary
In Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was lured away and forcefully converted to Islam by a Muslim man. According to media reports, the victim’s mother, originally from Himachal Pradesh, filed a complaint at the Afzalgarh police station after her daughter was taken away by a Muslim man from the area. She stated that the man had enticed her minor daughter nearly a year earlier and was now attempting to impose religious conversion upon her. According to the mother, the family of the man travelled to Himachal Pradesh, where they coerced her into placing her thumb impression on blank papers. She was made to believe this would secure her daughter’s return. Instead, they refused to hand over the teenager and declared that she had already been converted. The distraught mother reached Bijnor, accompanied by activists of a Hindu organisation, seeking justice. Police in charge, Sumit Rathi, stated that the matter originated in Himachal Pradesh, and neither family resides within Afzalgarh’s jurisdiction. He further stated that efforts were underway to recover the girl.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory under this is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories under this are: Conversion of minor and Family claims grooming. 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 proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The other subcategory selected 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. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker because it demonstrates a clear instance of predatory proselytisation, specifically involving the grooming and manipulation of a Hindu minor. The facts presented reveal not only an act of religious conversion without legitimate consent but also the deliberate use of coercion, deception, and abuse of trust to sever the victim’s connection with her faith and family. The most decisive factor in this case is that the victim is a minor. A child cannot exercise expressive consent in matters as grave as religious conversion. The very idea of consent presupposes maturity of judgment, comprehension of consequences, and independence of decision-making. None of these can be ascribed to a teenager lured by emotional manipulation, isolation, and calculated inducement. What has taken place here is not a voluntary spiritual choice but a forced alteration of religious identity imposed through deceit and coercion. The pressure applied to the mother in Himachal Pradesh, forcing her thumb impression on blank papers under the pretext of her daughter’s release, only underscores the unlawful and manipulative nature of this entire scheme. At its root, this case is a hate crime against Hindus. The conversion of the minor is not merely a personal transgression but an attack on the religious identity of the victim and her family. The aim is not to coexist but to erase and replace, to substitute one faith with another by targeting the most vulnerable member of a Hindu household. The religious motivation is explicit: the teenager was taken away from her Hindu environment, severed from her natural guardians, and absorbed into a setting where her Hindu identity could be systematically dismantled. Such actions arise from animosity toward Hinduism itself, as the victim’s conversion serves the perpetrator’s intention of eroding the continuity of Hindu belief within her family and community. The broader implications cannot be ignored. When minors are targeted for conversion, it reveals a strategy rooted in long-term demographic engineering. Children are the most susceptible to psychological influence, and when their identity is reshaped under pressure, it ensures a generational rupture in religious continuity. This is why grooming, brainwashing, and subtle indoctrination are considered particularly predatory: they operate not through overt violence but through manipulation of loyalty, trust, and emotional dependency. In this case, the relationship developed between the young girl and the man from Afzalgarh was used as a tool to dismantle her faith and secure her allegiance to another. By definition, this is predatory proselytisation. It is executed with religious hostility, directed against Hindus, and enabled by exploiting a minor’s vulnerability. The combination of deceit, coercion, and the intent to impose a contrasting faith upon a Hindu child firmly categorises this incident as a hate crime motivated by religion. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date on which the abduction and conversion of the minor Hindu girl happened. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media. Media reports also state that the Muslim man involved in this crime was supported by his family. However, as the reports do not specify the exact number of family members involved, we are conservatively considering the perpetrator count as '1', referring solely to the Muslim man. This approach is taken due to the lack of specific information regarding his family members.
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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
