Muslim man gangrapes Hindu student, force-feeds her beef, takes her to the mosque and makes her perform Namaz

Case ID : a4aee10 | Location : Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 15 February, 2024

Case ID : a4aee10

Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India

15 February, 2024

Muslim man gangrapes Hindu student, force-feeds her beef, takes her to the mosque and makes her perform Namaz

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

Sohail Khan blackmailed a girl student in Mirganj by making a video of her bathing, leading to multiple rapes and forcibly converting her to Islam. Khan also forced her to eat beef and offer namaz at a shrine. The student reported the incident to the police, who arrested Sohail's father and mother while Sohail remained at large. In her complaint, the student said that Sohail Khan started blackmailing her by showing her a bathing video and raped her by threatening to make the video viral. Not only this, Sohail kept raping her continuously by blackmailing her. The student said that the accused forcefully took her to mosques and dargahs and forced her to recite Kalma and Namaz.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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. This case is a distinct case of religiously motivated hate crime as the Muslim perpetrator employed threat and coercion to attempt the Hindu victim to give up her professed faith and accept Islam, an alien faith for her. The accused raped the victim. then in order to pressure her into conversion, the accused compelled the victim to follow Islamic practices like eating beef, wearing a hijab and offering Namaz. This is clearly done when the perpetrator holds disdain for the victim's professed faith, which is Hinduism and harbours a clear intention to proselytise the Hindu victim. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the intention of disenfranchising them from it, the case has been categorised as a hate crime.