Tribal Hindu widow lured into religious conversion and sexual abuse by Christian doctor
Surat, Gujarat, India 
1 January, 2022
Case Summary
In the Mandvi area of Surat district, a tribal Hindu widow was targeted for religious conversion and sexual exploitation under the pretext of marriage by a Christian man named Dr. Ankit Chaudhary. The incident started three years back, in 2022, when the Hindu woman took her husband to Dr. Ankit due to serious health issues. During that time, the doctor gave her his number for emergency purposes. However, the victim's husband passed away after some time, due to which the victim contacted Dr. Ankit for more information. He called her to his clinic and slowly built trust with the Hindu woman, after which he started sexually exploiting her on the pretext of marriage. He kept the relationship for over three years, where he continued to exploit her sexually and also pressured her to convert to Christianity. He said that he would only marry her if she converted to Christianity. The woman, trusting the doctor's intentions, agreed to convert to Christianity. She was taken to a riverbank where Dr. Ankit’s father conducted the religious conversion ceremony. After the conversion, when the woman asked for marriage, Dr. Ankit refused and abandoned her. The woman subsequently approached the police and filed a complaint on May 16, detailing how she was lured, converted, and then abandoned. It has also been reported that the accused's father is a pastor, and both were involved in the conversion of many tribal Hindus. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing, and the accused was absconding.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under two primary categories. The first is: - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the tertiary category selected is: - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being: - Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed and Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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. The other sub-category relevant here is: - Forced conversion before marriage. 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. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. The second primary category selected here is: - Predatory proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected is: - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: - 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 tribal Hindu woman was converted to Christianity through emotional blackmail and a false promise of marriage. Dr. Ankit Chaudhary, a Christian man, targeted her emotional vulnerability following the death of her husband and manipulated her for sexual exploitation with the eventual goal of religious conversion. Rather than offering support to her in time of distress, he used her vulnerable state to further his agenda of religious conversion. Furthermore, this was not an isolated incident; he and his father were also involved in converting many Hindus to Christianity in the region. Their activities point to a well-organised and sustained effort to target vulnerable individuals, particularly women from tribal backgrounds, by exploiting their faith, desperation, and social marginalisation. Thus, he was neither interested in a genuine relationship with the Hindu woman, nor was his intention benevolent or borne out of helping a woman. Instead, his actions were calculated, strategic with the intention of trapping the Hindu woman. The woman’s pain and vulnerability were used as tools to fulfil his objective of religious conversion and sexual exploitation 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 deceptive means such as false promises of marriage or financial aid. 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. This case is a clear instance of forced conversion through emotional manipulation, sexual exploitation, and abuse of trust, which is why it has been categorised as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: None of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim’s ordeal began. The earliest reference is to the year 2022, when the Hindu woman first took her husband to the Christian doctor for treatment. Since Hinduphobia Tracker documents incidents based on when the victim’s experience began, not when it was reported, and the exact visit date is unknown, we have used January 1, 2022, as an indicative date, though the media reported the incident on June 7, 2025.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
