Muslim man in Rajasthan's Alwar abducts minor Dalit girl, rapes her and marries her after forceful conversion to Islam

Case ID : a4aed2c | Location : Alwar, Rajasthan, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 12 April, 2024

Case ID : a4aed2c

Alwar, Rajasthan, India

12 April, 2024

Muslim man in Rajasthan's Alwar abducts minor Dalit girl, rapes her and marries her after forceful conversion to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Rajasthan’s Alwar, a man named Sabir is accused of raping a minor Dalit girl after kidnapping her. The victim was then forcibly converted to Islam and married to the accused. The victim’s family told the police that their 17-year-old daughter of Bagad Tiraha had gone to the market April 13, 2024. During this time, she disappeared. The family of a minor girl discovered that their daughter had been abducted by a man named Sabir from a nearby village. Upon visiting Sabir's house, his family deceived the girl's family, promising to assist in locating her. However, when their efforts failed, the girl's family returned to Sabir's house accompanied by the police. They learned that their daughter had been forcefully converted to Islam and married to Sabir. Consequently, the police filed a case against Sabir under various sections of the IPC, including abduction and sexual assault, as well as under stringent POCSO and SC/ST Acts.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

Because of the case's specifics, we have put this case under the prime category: Predatory Proselytization and to narrow down the search further we have chosen the sub-category 'harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' under this core category. 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. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. 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 Hindu minor girl in this instance was kidnapped and confined. This is a serious intimidation tactic in and of itself. Then the perpetrators subjected her to unbearable physical torture. She was raped and then forcefully married to her perpetrator. The purpose behind the violence employed was to coerce the victim to abandon her faith and accept Islam. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu girl. Further, the central aim of the perpetrators was to disenfranchise the Hindu girl from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime.