Case Summary

A minor Hindu girl was targeted by Imran, a 25-year-old Muslim man from Tahpur, who lured her into an exploitative relationship with the help of a Muslim girl known to the victim. On 13 October 2025, Imran abducted the girl, forced her to wear a burqa, and tried to pressure her into converting to Islam. After three days, she managed to escape from his clutches and returned home. The accused, refusing to accept the Hindu girl's rejection, followed her home and began threatening her over the phone, insisting on marriage. When the victim's family continued to resist, he posted a photo of her wearing the burqa on Instagram, marking the post with the message, “Happy Wedding Anniversary.” This prompted the victim’s mother to file an FIR with the police. Following the filing of the FIR, the police initiated their search for the accused. Circle Officer (CO) City, Abhishek Pratap Ajey, issued orders for the arrest of the individual. On 26 October 2025, the police went to his house but found him missing. The police then detained his father, Jabir Khan, for questioning. SHO Shashikant Kanoujia stated that after interrogating the father, they traced Imran's location to Talgram-Amolar Road. When they tried to stop him, Imran fired at the officers, and in the ensuing exchange of fire, he was shot in the leg and arrested. Investigations revealed that Imran had similar photos and chats on his phone involving other girls he had exploited in the past. Imran’s actions were part of a broader pattern of coercion and manipulation where he used his position at the local hospital to vet and profile victims, then targeted vulnerable girls, often exploiting their fear of social stigma. The victim's family was threatened with death when they rejected his demands. Despite previous instances of similar incidents in the village, it was only after this direct threat to the victim's life that the case was brought to the police’s attention. At the time of writing the report, Imran faced multiple serious charges, including harassment, criminal intimidation, and exploitation of a minor under the POCSO Act.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the first primary category of: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is: Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to wear hijab. 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 to her religion and give up her religious identity. In both 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 pressurising 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 selected here is: Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor and Family claims grooming and 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 hate crimes. The second primary category selected here is: - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected here is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. 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 the 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 minor Hindu girl was lured, abducted, forced to wear a Hijab and pressured for marriage by the Muslim accused. The accused tried to convert the minor Hindu girl to Islam, and when she refused, threatened her with death. Firstly, it is important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion or consenting to Nikah/marriage, and the Muslim perpetrators purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Additionally, any supposed consent given in such cases is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. 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. Secondly, the Muslim man threatened the victim that he would kill her family if she refused to convert and marry him. The threat was intended to break her spirit and intimidate the entire family to force submission to his demands of religious conversion. This behaviour reflects that the Hindu identity of the victim was completely unacceptable to the Muslim man owing to the malicious Islamic indoctrination, where hatred for Hinduism is emphasised. Third, in the Islamic faith, the conversion of the non-Muslim partner is a prerequisite for Nikah, which was why the accused had the intention of converting the victim to Islam. The purpose of forced religious conversion reveals the intent of the accused to strip the victim of her Hindu identity and impose Islam upon her. Forced conversions such as this do not occur in a vacuum; they are rooted in deep‑seated hostility towards the faith of the victim, which makes this a clear case of a crime driven by religious hatred. Also, the accused made the minor Hindu girl wear a burqa and clicked photos. Although it might appear that this was done merely to conceal her identity, however, in reality, it is also an indirect attempt at subtly imposing an Islamic lifestyle upon her. It was not merely about clothing; it symbolised the effort to overwrite her Hindu identity and forcibly assimilate her into practices of the Islamic faith. This again glaringly demonstrates the religiously motivated nature of the crime. Also, he posted the same photos on Instagram to intimidate and humiliate the victim. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic religions believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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. Given that this case meets several parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it is being included in the Hate Crime Database maintained by the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began. However, in this case, the report does not provide specific details regarding when the accused trapped the victim in a relationship. The earliest date mentioned is 13 October 2025 - when she was abducted. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date of the incident has been recorded as 13 October 2025.