Minor Hindu girl lured, raped and pressured for religious conversion by Muslim youth in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
22 July, 2021
Case Summary
In Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was lured, raped and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth, Mohammad Talib, also known as Talib Ansari. According to reports, the victim's father filed a complaint with the police on 25 July 2023, stating that his 17-year-old daughter, a Class 11 student, had first come into contact with Talib through Instagram and WhatsApp about two years ago in 2021, when she was in Class 9, while the accused was an intermediate student. Despite her initial reluctance, the accused persistently approached her, manipulated her and gradually gained her trust through false promises of marriage. Over a period of nearly two years, he repeatedly raped her and recorded obscene videos. He used these videos to blackmail her and pressured her to abandon her faith and convert to Islam. He also threatened to leak these videos in an effort to control and silence her. In March 2023, the victim’s mother returned home, and she found her daughter in an objectionable situation with the accused; upon being confronted, Talib threatened her and fled the scene. The victim's father also stated that the accused was part of an active gang, where several Muslim men lure, target and exploit Hindu girls. Based on the complaint, the police conducted a medical examination of the victim, recorded her statement before a magistrate, and filed a charge sheet under relevant sections of the POCSO Act and the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act. During the trial, the court observed that the offence involved deliberate grooming, prolonged sexual exploitation, digital blackmail, and religious coercion, and that such acts undermined social trust and caused lasting harm beyond the immediate victim. The court of Additional Sessions Judge (POCSO) Umesh Kumar II found Mohammad Talib guilty and sentenced him to 12 years of rigorous imprisonment, imposed fines totalling ₹41,000, and directed the payment of ₹50,000 as compensation to the victim, stressing that rape of a minor combined with forced religious conversion constituted an exceptionally grave crime with serious societal consequences.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Within this, the tertiary categories selected are- Conversion of Minor and Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 the 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 proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category selected here 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 second primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Blackmail to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of Minor 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. 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was lured, raped and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth, Mohammad Talib, also known as Talib Ansari. The accused lured her into a relationship under false promises of marriage, after which he raped her and pressured her to convert to Islam. Firstly, it is important to note here that when the victim came into contact with the accused, she was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor without her volition. This case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, and it's a blatant act of religious hate. Secondly, the accused lured the victim under false promises of marriage. He sexually exploited her and obtained her obscene pictures, which he later used to blackmail her for conversion. The sexual violation served as an instrument of religious humiliation, designed to shatter personal autonomy and demonstrate absolute dominance. This physical act cannot be separated from its religious context; it represented the culmination of a process intended to break the victim's connection to her culture, as the accused later pressured her for conversion. Such crimes communicate a terrifying message to the entire Hindu community: that their women represent legitimate targets for systematic predation specifically because of their religious identity. Thirdly, the victim was subjected to harassment and blackmail for religious conversion by the accused. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another is a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Fourth, it is important to mention here that the blackmail and sexual violence were not random acts of crime, but they were used as manipulative tactics in order to convert the victim to Islam. They functioned as religiously motivated tools aimed at humiliating and dominating a Hindu woman because of her faith. The target was not the victim as an individual, but her Hindu identity. The clear intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. It was not a random violence; It was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. 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 till they convert. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of the incident based on when the crime occurred. The media reports published this case on 17 January 2026. However, the media reports do not specify the exact date of the beginning of the victim’s ordeal. The complaint was filed on 25 July 2023, where the victim's father stated that the accused lured the victim about two years ago in 2021. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 23 July 2021, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Perpetrator held guilty by court
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
