Hindu man offered inducements, villagers brainwashed with religious texts for Christian conversion in Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : cb280d6 | Location : Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 29 November, 2025

Case ID : cb280d6

Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

29 November, 2025

Hindu man offered inducements, villagers brainwashed with religious texts for Christian conversion in Uttar Pradesh

Predatory Proselytisation

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Case Summary

In Siahabganj Purana village, Alhaganj, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man and several local Hindu residents were targeted for forced religious conversion by a Christian man. The accused offered inducements to the Hindu victim and brainwashed other villagers using the Bible to convert them to Christianity. All these actions were conducted under the guise of a religious gathering. According to reports, the Hindu organisations, including Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), received information that a Christian conversion meeting was organised covertly inside a house. They stated that a Christian man from the village had been conducting weekly meetings every Sunday inside his residence, during which he and his family members brainwashed Hindus to convert to Christianity. It was also revealed that the accused would also invite pastors from outside to assist him in conducting these meetings. On the day of the incident, 30 November 2025, a Hindu man reached the accused's house at around 12:30 pm. The Hindu victim was encouraged to convert to Christianity. He was also offered inducements by the accused in the form of promising to arrange his marriage, provide him with a house, and provide other financial benefits. When Hindu activists reached the site, they found several Christian women present along with a Bible. This religious text was being used to brainwash Hindus to abandon their faith. The VHP city president, Ramji Mishra, submitted a written complaint to the police, following which the police visited the location and began an enquiry into the ongoing conversion activities. The police were also examining whether external money had been entering the bank accounts of the accused or his family members in connection with the conversions. As of the date of writing this report, the police investigation is ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category - Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is- Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducements. 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- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation, or subtle indoctrination. 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu man was targeted for religious conversion and offered inducements by the Christian accused. The accused offered various inducements, such as promising to arrange his marriage, provide him with a house, and provide other financial benefits, in order to push him towards conversion. Firstly, the act of offering incentives or making false promises, especially when directed at vulnerable individuals in need, shows that these incentives are not acts of kindness or charity. Instead, they are calculated moves to exploit vulnerable Hindus because of their religion. By providing inducements in exchange for conversion, the accused were effectively blackmailing the victim, who might have been desperate for assistance or hope. Such instances are seen in many cases where members of Christian missionary groups target socially and economically vulnerable Hindus to further their agenda of religious conversions. 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 and their faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Secondly, the accused organised Christian prayer meetings/gatherings inside his house to lure and brainwash Hindu villagers into conversion. What is often presented as a simple prayer gathering or a community gathering, in reality, is a covert attempt at religious conversion. They are not genuine community prayers but calculated efforts to exploit the trust of Hindus and manipulate them into abandoning their faith. By conducting such gatherings covertly, the Christian accused sought to manipulate vulnerable Hindus, taking advantage of their emotional and social circumstances to push them towards conversion. Thirdly, the Christian perpetrators were also actively attempting to indoctrinate the Hindu victim by using Christian religious texts like the Bible. Using the scriptures or literature of one faith to deliberately target and manipulate members of another, with the clear intention of religious conversion, represents a direct attack on the Hindu faith. Such actions are designed to violate and undermine the beliefs of Hindu victims and are clear indicators of religious hostility towards Hindus and their religious identity. Such actions further demonstrate that this was not an isolated incident of evangelism, but rather part of a broader, organised operation to further religious conversions. When Christian religious material is used to exploit trust, sow doubt, and misrepresent the beliefs of Hindus to coerce conversion, particularly in a systematic manner, it constitutes a religiously motivated offence. Reports confirmed that the accused, alongside Christian pastors and women, held such conversion events every Sunday. This relentless pattern of targeting Hindus—luring them with incentives and subjecting them to psychological manipulation through the Bible—stands as a stark example of religiously motivated crime. These actions aimed squarely to undermine Hindu religious and cultural identity through coercion, deceit, and unlawful tactics. Far from isolated or accidental, the conversions formed a calculated strategy to systematically erase Hindu faith, with evangelists profiling vulnerable Hindus to strip them of their sacred heritage. The Christian faith, by its very theological foundations, places a strong emphasis on proselytisation. In pursuit of conversion objectives, Christian evangelists often employ unethical means, ranging from psychological pressure and misinformation to inducements such as money or jobs. These tactics are designed not as acts of charity but as tools to engineer religious change under the guise of social upliftment, particularly among vulnerable and underprivileged communities. Such predatory actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victims' professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Such acts are not merely personal crimes; they are rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the Hindu victims. Since such actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented in the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports in this case confirm that a Hindu man and other Hindu villagers faced targeting for Christian conversion, yet specify only the Hindu man explicitly without detailing the total number of Hindu villagers involved. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the Hinduphobia Tracker records a conservative victim count of one (1). Reports further state that the main Christian perpetrator, alongside other Christian pastors and women, targeted Hindus for conversion, but name only the specific Christian accused without quantifying the others involved. Thus, for precise documentation, the perpetrator count stands as a conservative estimate of one (1).