Case Summary

In Indore, a 17 year old Hindu girl was raped and blackmailed by a Muslim man. The perpetrator is a resident of Gandhi Nagar, Indore. One year ago, he established an acquaintance with the victim. He followed up on the acquaintance and forged a friendship with her. He proposed to her and invited her to his house. There, he raped her. The victim, because of fear, remained silent and did not tell anyone about the incident. The perpetrator blackmailed her. The victim was sexually harassed three to four times after the first incident. The perpetrator created an obscene video of a girl while she was taking a bath. Further, he uploaded it on Instagram. He deleted that video after one hour and sent it to the victim through WhatsApp. He blackmailed the girl and demanded ₹40000. The girl contacted Amit Pal and Vinod Chetri, Hindu activists. The victim narrated the entire incident and also played the recording in which a Muslim man was threatening and demanding money. Hindu activists filed a complaint in Gandhi Nagar police station and police arrested the perpetrator.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

In this case, the Muslim perpetrator raped a Hindu minor. There are suspicions that the Hindu minor was targeted owing to her religious identity. From the details available, it is entirely possible that the crime was one of opportunity, where the girl was simply accessible to the perpetrator. However, there is a flip side to the argument - for a Muslim perpetrator, a Muslim child would be far more accessible than a Hindu child. The fact that the perpetrator specifically targeted the Hindu girl could point towards the religious profiling of the victim. However, this is only in the realm of speculation since the case details make no indications of the religious motivations of the perpetrator. For that reason, this case is being added to the 'Undecided' database. If more information emerges, it will be added to the Hate Crime Database.