Hindu girls harassed and targeted by Christian conversion racket in Noida

Case ID : b45f6cd | Location : Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 5 May, 2024

Case ID : b45f6cd

Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

5 May, 2024

Hindu girls harassed and targeted by Christian conversion racket in Noida

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Case Summary

A Hindu girl and her cousin were harassed on a daily basis by members of a Christian missionary group in Noida. The girl’s father, Jitendra Bahadur, lodged a complaint at the Expressway Police Station. His daughter, a B.Tech student, was routinely surrounded by a group of Christian individuals when she got off the bus near Gulshan Mall. The group, which included two women named Ishu and Ritu and a man, pressured her to read the Bible and accompany them to their house. The same group also targeted Jitendra’s brother’s daughter in a similar manner. Following the investigation, police arrested six members identified as YY Bon, Abhireena, Rishabh Nair, Ravi Teja, Ishu, and Ritu. Authorities found that the group was running a conversion racket, luring people to their residence under the pretext of Bible reading. A local resident further stated that the group had attempted to take his daughter to their home with the intent of converting her. The police complaint detailed how girls passing through the Gulshan Mall area were stopped and coerced into reading Christian texts as part of this scheme. A case was filed against all six accused, along with the landlord whose house was being used for conversions. All six were taken into custody and sent to jail.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category relevant in this case 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 relevant is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, and the tertiary category selected is - Pattern of targeting Hindus. 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 this case, the Hindu girl and her cousin were subjected to daily harassment by members of a Christian missionary group. The perpetrators routinely intercepted the girl near Gulshan Mall, surrounded her, and pressured her to read the Bible and visit their home. Such conduct is not merely social pressure but constitutes targeted harassment rooted in religious identity. The victims were singled out because they were Hindu, and the harassment was explicitly aimed at making them abandon their own faith. By intimidating and coercing them into participating in Christian religious activities, the group sought to nullify their freedom of religion. This form of religious harassment falls squarely within the definition of a hate crime. The arrested individuals were not only harassing Hindu girls but also running a systematic conversion racket. Their tactic of luring young women under the pretext of Bible reading and then drawing them into their household environment demonstrates elements of grooming and manipulation. This is not a one-time coercion but a repeated, calculated attempt at indoctrination, designed to gradually erode the victims’ attachment to their Hindu identity and replace it with allegiance to another religion. The facts of the case also reveal a clear pattern of targeting Hindus. The perpetrators did not indiscriminately approach people of different faiths but focused on Hindu girls in the locality, including both Jitendra Bahadur’s daughter and his brother’s daughter, as well as other Hindu girls passing through the Gulshan Mall area. The police complaint and local testimonies show that the targeting was deliberate and consistent, driven by animosity toward Hindu identity and a desire to convert Hindus specifically. This establishes that the actions of the group were not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of religiously motivated hate crimes against Hindus, carried out through harassment and grooming tactics. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the news report does not indicate the date when the victim's ordeal began. Hence, for documentation purposes the date is selected when it is reported in the media.