Case Summary

A minor Hindu girl was lured into a relationship and abducted by a Muslim man in the Basti district of Uttar Pradesh. The accused raped the Hindu girl and pressured her to change her religion for marriage. The case occurred in the Cantonment police station area. About two months before the abduction, the accused, Mujib, a resident of Amethi, befriended the victim through Instagram. According to Circle Officer Sanjay Singh, the two had been in regular contact over the phone. Mujib had trapped the girl in a love affair and, on 7th Oct 2025, took her to Amethi under the pretence of marriage. There, he raped her and demanded that she convert to Islam to marry him. When she declined, the accused further abused her. Meanwhile, her family had been anxious and searched for her among relatives and acquaintances, but she could not be found. They then filed a missing person’s report at the Cantonment police station. During the investigation, the police learned that she had been in touch with a young man through social media. With the help of surveillance, they tracked down Mujib, arrested him, and rescued the girl from his custody. CO Sanjay Singh had confirmed that the accused had been charged under the POCSO Act and other relevant sections for abducting the minor under the false promise of marriage. Mujib had been sent to jail.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the first primary category: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory under this is: Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories under this are: Rape and sexual assault/harassment, and 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’ 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 sub-category selected is: Forced to convert 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 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 third subcategory under this is: Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurising the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The second primary category selected is: Predatory Proselytisation. Within which the sub-category selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Tertiary categories selected under this are: 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 that 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 proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was lured, abducted, sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion by the Muslim accused. The accused trapped her in a love affair and abducted her with the intention of converting her to Islam. 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 a relationship or elopement, and the Muslim perpetrator 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 accused abducted and pressured her to convert to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her faith is not a matter of personal choice; it is coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim’s Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act is aimed at erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making this a religiously motivated crime. Thirdly, the victim was abused when she refused to convert. The abduction was an effort to isolate her from her social circle and support. In such cases, abduction serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention behind this harassment is to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she can be easily coerced into conversion. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. 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. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the relationship began, only mentioning a time frame of two months before the abduction. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on two months before the victim was abducted, 7 Aug 2025.