Sameer of Islamabad kidnaps minor Hindu girl in Gujarat, mother of victim suspects forced conversion

Case ID : b18358a | Location : Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 6 October, 2024

Case ID : b18358a

Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

6 October, 2024

Sameer of Islamabad kidnaps minor Hindu girl in Gujarat, mother of victim suspects forced conversion

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Family claims grooming

Case Summary

In Prahlad Nagar, a 16-year-old Hindu girl was reportedly kidnapped by Sameer, a resident of Islamabad. The girl's mother lodged a police complaint, accusing Sameer of kidnapping her daughter and attempting to brainwash her into converting. The victim, a Class 10 student, lost her father two years ago, after which she and her younger brother stayed with their aunt, while their mother moved to Bareilly with her other children. The abduction occurred on the morning of October 7, 2024, and following the incident, the family immediately began searching for the girl. The girl's aunt filed a complaint at the local police station against Sameer, demanding the girl's safe recovery. Additionally, a complaint was made to local BJP leader Kamal Dasha regarding the case.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

A minor Hindu girl was victimised in this case. According to the parents, the minor was groomed for forced conversion to Islam. Because of the assertions by the family of the victim, this case is being added to the primary category 'Predatory Proselytisation'. The sub-category chosen is 'proselytisation by brainwashing, grooming, manipulation or subtle indoctrination'. The tertiary category selected is 'family claims grooming of a minor'. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. 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. It is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. In this case, the minor was abducted and the mother of the victim said that the abduction was to forcefully convert the minor. Based on the statement of the mother of the victim, this case is being categorised as a religiously motivated hate crime.