Muslim youth from Jaipur befriends a minor Hindu girl and brainwashes her to convert to Islam

Case ID : b7c3efa | Location : Jaipur, Rajasthan, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 23 June, 2023

Case ID : b7c3efa

Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

23 June, 2023

Muslim youth from Jaipur befriends a minor Hindu girl and brainwashes her to convert to Islam

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Family claims grooming

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

On July 4, 2023, Jaipur police arrested one Sohail Khan for kidnapping, raping and trying to forcibly convert a minor girl to Islam. The accused was arrested and produced before a court where the magistrate sent him to judicial custody. Reportedly, Sohail Khan had befriended the minor girl a few days back. On June 20, the minor left her home in Jaipur. She told her parents that she was going to her friend’s birthday party. On June 24, when she came back, she began referring to herself as Ismayra Khan. After observing the girl’s behaviour, the father filed a complaint on July 1, accusing Sohail of abducting his 16-year-old daughter, taking her to Sawai Madhopur where he raped her, and brainwashing her in an attempt to convert her to Islam.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

What makes this case worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the family members of a minor Hindu girl, who is the victim in this case, accused a Muslim man of targeting their minor daughter and brainwashing her to convert to Islam. 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. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime.