Hindu man in Bilaspur harassed and denied access to child for refusing religious conversion

Case ID : aa4ae82 | Location : Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 8 April, 2025

Case ID : aa4ae82

Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India

8 April, 2025

Hindu man in Bilaspur harassed and denied access to child for refusing religious conversion

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, a Hindu man accused his wife and in-laws of forcing him to convert to Christianity. He has also said that he is being harassed and denied access to his newborn child for refusing to accede to their conversion demands. Sonu Mahto, a resident of Pendra Road, stated that last year, he married a woman from Deoridih, Bilaspur. According to Sonu, the couple lived together for three months, during which time his wife became pregnant. She was then taken to her maternal home in Bilaspur by her family, citing the need for care and support during pregnancy. Since then, she remained there and gave birth to their child. Sonu stated that his wife and her family had been pressuring him to convert to Christianity. He said that they had adopted the Christian faith, attended church regularly and conducted prayers at home. Sonu further stated that his wife had refused to return to his home and was not allowing him to meet their child. Maintaining that he follows the Hindu faith and does not wish to convert, Sonu asserted that he is being harassed by his in-laws as a result. The case was registered at the women’s police station as a domestic dispute, and the matter was being investigated.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category of- Predatory Proselytisation. Under this, the 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. This case constituted a religiously motivated hate crime as the Hindu victim, Sonu Mahato, was subjected to persistent harassment and psychological coercion by his wife and in-laws, who had adopted Christianity. The pressure to abandon his Hindu faith and convert was not incidental but formed the basis of his mistreatment, which included being denied access to his child and estranged from his family life. The sustained nature of the threats and emotional intimidation directly targeted his religious identity and attempted to suppress his freedom to practise his faith. This pattern of predatory proselytisation, whereby the victim’s Hindu belief became the ground for abuse, met the threshold of a hate crime as it was rooted in religious discrimination and intent to forcibly alter his spiritual convictions.