Muslim man lures Hindu woman on pretext of getting job, rapes and forces victim to convert to Islam

Case ID : a4aee3f | Location : Ramgarh, Jharkhand, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 24 February, 2024

Case ID : a4aee3f

Ramgarh, Jharkhand, India

24 February, 2024

Muslim man lures Hindu woman on pretext of getting job, rapes and forces victim to convert to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Ramgarh, Jharkhand, a case of rape emerged when a woman accused Ajmal Ansari of promising her a job in an NGO and then sexually assaulting her. The victim filed a complaint at the women's police station in Ramgarh, stating that Ajmal threatened her, filmed obscene videos, and forcibly converted her to Islam. The incident came to light on February 25, 2024, when the victim reported the matter to the police. Ajmal, a resident of Bokaro, lured the victim to various locations, including a hotel in Ramgarh, where he assaulted her. He also confiscated her mobile phone and coerced her into accepting Islam. The victim said that Ajmal threatened to release the objectionable videos if she spoke out, and he physically abused her when she resisted. The police initiated an investigation and registered a case, ensuring appropriate action would be taken.

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. In this case, the Muslim perpetrator lured the Hindu victim on the pretext of getting her a job. The Hindi victim testified that the accused pressured her to convert to Islam by blackmailing her with her private pictures. She was physically abused when she resisted the conversion attempt. The fact that the accused went to the extent of employing such merciless tactics to convert the Hindu victim to Islam itself shows the perpetrator's deep disdain for the Hindu faith. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the accused employed violence and intimidation to disenfranchise the victim from it, the case has been included under the sub-category 'harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' within the core category of 'predatory proselytisation'.