Hindu woman blackmailed, raped, threatened with weapon and forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man

Case ID : aa4b0cf | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 31 December, 2020

Case ID : aa4b0cf

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

31 December, 2020

Hindu woman blackmailed, raped, threatened with weapon and forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In the Wazirganj area of Lucknow, a young Hindu woman was blackmailed and raped by a Muslim man name Shariq. In her written complaint, the woman also accused Shariq of continued harassment, including stalking, threats with a weapon, and pressure to convert to Islam. According to the victim, Shariq, the son of Juggan Ali, had been tormenting her for the past five years. She stated that three years ago, he raped her and subsequently used videos and photographs to blackmail her, subjecting her to continued sexual exploitation over the following three years. The victim further recounted a recent incident on 4 May 2025, when Shariq came to her workplace, damaged her car, and created a ruckus. He fled the scene when security guards intervened. The following day, 5 May 2025, he intercepted the victim near Shaheed Smarak, threatened her with a weapon, and forced her onto his motorbike. He then took her towards Barabanki and drove her around for nearly five hours. In her complaint, the woman also reported that Shariq, along with his parents and his wife, threatened her on multiple occasions. They said that if she did not convert to Islam and marry Shariq, they would kill her and her entire family. The victim stated that on 5 May 2025, Shariq snatched her phone and later abandoned her near her office. Following her complaint, the Wazirganj police registered a case under serious charges and began an investigation into the matter.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker un the primary category of - Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected here 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 qualifies as a religiously motivated hate crime due to the persistent and targeted harassment of the Hindu woman on the basis of her religious identity. The perpetrator, Shariq, raped her and blackmailed her to convert to Islam. She was threatened with potential harm to both her and her family if she refused to convert. This was an arm-twisting tactic that the perpetrator adopted to compel the victim to renounce her professed faith and accept Islam. This constitutes a religiously motivated hate crime as such actions are driven by intolerance towards the victim's religious identity and aim to coerce them into abandoning their faith, often accompanied by threats, violence, or other forms of intimidation. The victim’s testimony includes a clear pattern of religiously motivated harassment, with the accused and his family applying psychological pressure through repeated threats of violence. The motivation behind the abuse is not merely personal or circumstantial, but specifically tied to the victim’s religious identity. Hence, this case is added to the hate crime database. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim's ordeal began when she met the accused in 2021, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—January 1, 2021—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged in May 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.