Hindu woman threatened with evil spirits and given inducements for conversion by Muslim man in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : a04930e | Location : Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 7 September, 2025

Case ID : a04930e

Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, India

7 September, 2025

Hindu woman threatened with evil spirits and given inducements for conversion by Muslim man in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

A Hindu woman living in the town area of Kairana in Shamli district was pressured to convert to Islam through coercion and inducements by a Muslim man. About two months before the filing of the complaint, a mutawalli from the mosque opposite her home began visiting her residence. He claimed that her house was under the influence of evil spirits, warning that without treatment, both she and her son would die. A few days later, he urged her to leave Hinduism and convert to Islam, offering her five lakh rupees in cash and monthly financial support in return. He assured her that changing her religion would remove the evil influences from her home. Determined to resist the pressure, she attended the thana samadhan diwas at the Kotwali on 8 November 2025 and submitted a written complaint to SP NP Singh, seeking strict action against the mutawalli. The SP acknowledged the gravity of the matter and instructed the relevant officers to proceed with appropriate action.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the first sub-category 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. The second sub-category selected is: Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases, therefore, are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was coerced and threatened for religious conversion by the Muslim accused. The Muslim man tried to take advantage of the woman's situation and used the fear of evil spirits and the possibility of the death of her child to emotionally manipulate her. These were not random acts of kindness but calculated moves to exploit her vulnerability, create dependency, and then use this dependency to pressure her for religious conversion. Offering inducements or making false promises in this way was a form of coercion and a deliberate attempt to manipulate Hindu victims because of their religion. The perpetrator even said that he would get her 5 lakh rupees cash and a monthly stipend if she converted, which was another tool to push her towards conversion. This showed a clear pattern of predatory proselytisation where personal distress was turned into a weapon to force conversion. Such coercion strips people of their agency and dignity and results in coerced conversions. These are not random or isolated incidents but part of a pattern rooted in religious animosity towards Hindu victims. 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 till they convert. 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 the victim’s ordeal began. However, in this case, the report does not provide a specific date regarding when the perpetrator started pressuring the victim for conversion, only giving a two-month range. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date of the incident has been recorded as the date two months before when the complaint was filed: 8th September 2025.