Nihal Khan poses as Nishant to lure minor Hindu girl to elope, forcibly converts her to Islam and marries her
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
13 October, 2024
Case Summary
In Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a man, identified as Nihal Khan, deceived a minor Hindu girl by posing as "Nishant" to establish a relationship with her. On October 14, he lured her away from her home, forcibly converted her religion, and married her without her consent. Nihal also confiscated the girl’s phone to prevent any contact with her family. When the girl did not return, her family filed a missing person report. Police investigation led to Nihal’s arrest, and during questioning, he confessed to the deception and forced conversion. The minor was rescued and returned to her family. A case was filed against Nihal under charges related to abduction, the POCSO Act, and forced religious conversion.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
Due to the multiple components of religiously motivated hate crime in this case, it is being added to the primary category 'crimes against women in relationship' under three sub-categories. The first sub-category is 'man pretends to be Hindu'. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. In this case, the Muslim perpetrator Nihal Khan pretended to be a Hindu man called Nishant to lure the Hindu minor victim. This proves that the victim was targeted specifically because of her religious identity. The second sub-category the case is being added to is 'forced conversion before marriage' and the tertiary category 'forced to do Nikah'. 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. The relationship in such cases is mostly 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. In such cases, 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. In this case, the specifics indicate that the Muslim perpetrator pretended to be a Hindu to lure the victim. Thereafter, he converted her religion and forced her to do Nikah. The victim in this case had no idea that the perpetrator was a Muslim and did not consent to the relationship or the conversion of her faith to do Nikah. This amounts to forcefully converting an individual after deceiving them to trap them, therefore, it is being added to this sub-category of religiously motivated hate crime. The third sub-category the case is being added to is 'brainwashing and/or grooming' under the tertiary category 'conversion of minor'. 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. In this case, the victim was a minor who was targeted specifically for her religious identity. Establishing any physical relationship with a minor is illegal ab initio because a minor does not have the agency to consent to either the relationship or the subsequent conversion of faith. In this case, there is a distinct element of grooming because the Muslim man pretended to be a Hindu to gain the trust of the minor victim, only to exploit her and convert her to Islam. For that reason, this case is being added to this category and the hate crime database.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
