Case Summary

In Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Asmita Singh was harassed and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim family. The Muslim family also denigrated Hinduism and threatened to kill her in an effort to convert her. According to reports, Asmita Singh, originally from Naiwadhia village in Amethi district, lived in a rented room with her mother and brother. To earn a livelihood, her mother, Anjali Singh, worked as a domestic help in the locality, including at the house of a Muslim family. When her health deteriorated over the past few months, Asmita took over her duties and began working at the house of the Muslim family. During this period, the Muslim family, including Jalina Bano, her husband Mohammad Hamir, their son Golu, daughter Saima, daughter-in-law Nadira, and a relative named Mohammad Maddan, began persistently pressuring the victim, Asmita Singh, to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam. They denigrated Hinduism, offered inducements and lured her with promises of financial stability and a better life if she converted and married Golu. This way, they kept on pressuring the Hindu victim to convert to Islam. When Asmita informed her mother about the ongoing coercion, both went to confront Jalina Bano and her family on 1 October 2025 at around 10:30 a.m. However, instead of resolving the situation peacefully, the Muslim family verbally abused them, issued death threats, and forcibly locked them inside a room after taking their phones. Jalina Bano then called her brother Mohammad Maddan, who arrived with four unidentified men. Together, they further pressured the victims to convert and threatened to kill them if they refused or reported the matter to the police. Maddan then physically assaulted Asmita’s mother, accusing them of stealing ₹2 lakh, and demanded ₹1 lakh to spare their lives. Out of fear, Asmita and her mother managed to borrow ₹70,000 and handed it over to the accused to secure their release. Even after the incident, Mohammad Maddan continued to make threatening phone calls, warning them against taking further action. Subsequently, a complaint was filed by the victim against the Muslim family. The police registered a case against six named individuals—Mohammad Hamir, Jalina Bano, Golu, Saima, Nadira, and Mohammad Maddan—along with four unidentified persons under relevant provisions related to forced religious conversion. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

The case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- 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. The other sub-category selected is- Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. The other subcategory selected is- Attempting to convert/ converting by denigrating Hinduism. In several cases, Hindus are converted or an attempt is made to convert Hindus by denigrating their faith, Hinduism. In such cases, the Hindus associate with the non-Hindu perpetrators often by choice and then, the attempt to convert them by insulting their faith, showing the faith down etc begins. An example of this would be a non-Hindu gathering where the Hindus are attending the gathering of their own free will. However, once they attend the gathering, there is an explicit attempt to convert them by abusing their faith and hailing the faith of the perpetrator. The denigration of the Hindu faith is often based on misrepresentation of the Hindu faith, its doctrine and scriptures and insult to espoused traditions if not blatant lies about Hindu beliefs and ways. Such conversions or attempts at conversions are driven by animosity towards the Hindu faith and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was targeted and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim family. Firstly, the accused attempted to force the Hindu victim to renounce her religion and convert to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another is a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It is not a matter of personal choice; it is coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Secondly, the victim was offered inducements and false promises of financial stability and a better life in exchange for converting to Islam and marrying one of the accused. Offering such inducements or making deceptive promises, especially to individuals struggling with poverty, cannot be seen as acts of compassion. Instead, they are calculated moves to exploit vulnerable Hindus because of their religion. By providing inducements or promising security in exchange for conversion, the accused were exploiting her economic hardship and personal circumstances, weaponising her vulnerability to further their agenda of religious conversion. This form of coercion strips people of their agency and dignity and results in coerced conversions. These are not random or isolated incidents, but rather cases deeply rooted in religious animosity towards Hindu victims. Thirdly, the perpetrators also denigrated Hinduism and ridiculed Hindu beliefs in an effort to convert the victim. This went beyond persuasion or debate; it amounted to deliberate insult and incitement against the Hindu faith. Such remarks are designed to demean and undermine the faith of Hindus and to create an inferiority complex in the minds of victims against their own faith. This fosters an environment of hostility and disrespect towards the Hindu community and Hindu deities. Fourthly, the use of threats, physical assault, and confinement against the victim and her mother further demonstrates the coercive and hate-driven nature of the act. In such cases, violence serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention is to break the victim down emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she can be converted. The repeated threats and extortion that followed indicate the sustained pressure exerted on the victims to ensure compliance through fear. This is not random violence; it is systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Fifthly, in Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which is why she was pressured for religious conversion. The Muslim family attempted to convert her and marry her to their son, Golu. The purpose of forced religious conversion reveals the intent of the accused to strip the victim of her Hindu identity and impose an Islamic one upon her. Forced conversions such as this do not occur in a vacuum; they are rooted in deep-seated hostility towards the faith of the victim, which makes this a clear case of a crime driven by religious hatred. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith, since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised until they convert. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that she was being pressured to convert for three to four months. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date — 5 July 2025 — as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 6 October 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.