Imran Baig abducts 13-year-old girl, rapes her, friend Shahrukh threatens victims family

Case ID : a4aee4d | Location : Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 7 February, 2024

Case ID : a4aee4d

Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

7 February, 2024

Imran Baig abducts 13-year-old girl, rapes her, friend Shahrukh threatens victims family

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

Imran Baig, a 21-year-old resident of Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh, abducted a 13-year-old girl after promising her marriage and later raped her in Uttar Pradesh. Before the rape, Imran made the victim unconscious. Police arrested Imran and his elder brother Kamran Baig. Shahrukh, an accused in the case, had threatened to kill the victim's family if they did not withdraw the case. The victim went missing on 8 February 2024, and her family filed a case against Imran Baig. The incident occurred in the Torwa police station area of Bilaspur, where Imran worked at a tomb. When the girl went missing, her family became concerned and lodged a police complaint against Imran, who worked at the tomb.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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’ in order 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 a hate crime. In this case, the victim was a 13-year-old who was lured by a Muslim man only to rape her later. A child of 13 has no agency to consent to marriage. Additionally, the Muslim man not only lured the minor with the promise to marry but also raped her later, which would also mean that he had no intention of marrying her but it was used as a pretext to lure the child. As such, this becomes a clear case of targeting of a minor. It is important to note that in Islam, marriage can only be considered legal if the non-Muslim partner converts to Islam. Therefore, there is an implicit conversion angle as well, for which the minor has no agency to give consent and it is illegal as per Indian laws. This case, therefore, is being classified as a religiously motivated hate crime and sub-categorised under conversion of a minor.