Hindu house-help coerced to convert to Islam, read Kalma by Srinagar-based employer, FIR lodged
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India 
4 April, 2024
Case Summary
A Hindu youth named Sandeep from Haryana working as a house help in a Kashmiri Muslim resident's house in Srinagar was coerced into converting to Islam, reciting the Kalma and giving Shahada during the Jumat-ul-Vida prayers at Dargah Hazratbal. A video of Sandeep Kumar went viral online wherein he was asked by Hazratbal Dargah’s Imam and Khateeb Kamal Farooqui if he was accepting Islam of his own free will or if he was coerced into converting. To this, the Hindu youth claims he was accepting Islam at his own will. Subsequently, Kamal Farroqui recited the Islamic Kalma and Sandeep repeated after him. This video prompted a police investigation. Sandeep claimed to have converted willingly, but police found he was "mentally manipulated" by Anayat Muntazir, his employer. An FIR was filed against Muntazir under IPC sections 188, 298, 153, and 153-A for disobedience, wounding religious feelings, provocation to cause riot, and promoting enmity between groups.
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 police have testified that the Hindu man was mentally manipulated and threatened by the Muslim employer to convert his religion. Since the underlying motive for issuing the threat and manipulating the Hindu man was to disenfranchise him from his professed faith, the case is being recorded as a religiously motivated hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Sources 
