Hindu minor girl coerced into religious conversion after being raped by a Muslim man in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
17 March, 2021
Case Summary
Hindu minor girl faced repeated rape and sexual exploitation by a Muslim man named Mohammad Talib, a resident of Kothiya in Purani Bazaar, Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. The victim, a 9th-grade student from the Kotwali police station area, used WhatsApp and Instagram on her mobile phone. Talib, who was then an intermediate student, sent her a friend request, and when she did not respond, he came to her residence, lured her with the promise of marriage, and raped her against her will. Talib then forced the victim to convert to Islam by threatening to make obscene videos of her and circulating them. He operated an organised gang that lured women into love traps and coerced them into religious conversion. The gang ran an Instagram account under the name 77, which brainwashed its targets. The victim’s mother reported that in March 2023, she discovered her daughter in a compromised position with Talib; when she raised an alarm, he threatened her and left. She mentioned that he sexually assaulted the victim's friends along with his associates. On 25th July 2023, the victim’s father filed a report at the Kotwali police station stating that Talib has been exploiting her for the last two years after getting her into a love trap. The police conducted a medical examination, recorded the victim’s statement, got the girl medically tested, collected other evidence, and finally filed a charge sheet in court. The court ruled that raping a woman and pressuring her to convert was a very serious crime, with consequences extending beyond the victim’s family to society at large. The court observed that Talib’s motive was to extort money and convert women by luring them into love jihad. Additional Sessions Judge Umesh Kumar II sentenced Mohammad Talib to twelve years of imprisonment and a fine of twenty-five thousand rupees (Rs. 25,000) for forming an organised gang, raping the victim, threatening to circulate obscene videos, and forcing religious conversion. He received five years of imprisonment and a fine of fifteen thousand rupees (Rs.15,000) for forcing religious conversion, and two years of imprisonment and a fine of one thousand rupees (Rs.1000) for threatening. If the fines were not paid, the Talib would have to serve an additional three months of imprisonment.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been documented under the selected primary category: Predatory Proseyltisation. Under this, the selected secondary category is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation, or subtle indoctrination. Under this, the selected tertiary category is: Victim says brainwashed/groomed, Family claims grooming, Pattern of targeting Hindus, Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Conversion of minor. 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. Another selected secondary category 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. Another selected primary category is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the selected secondary category is: Brainwashed and/or groomed. Under this, the selected tertiary category is: Victim says brainwashed/groomed, Family claims grooming, Pattern of targeting Hindus, Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Conversion of minor. 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. Another selected secondary category is: Forced conversion before marriage. 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. Another selected secondary category is: Blackmailed 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. Another selected secondary category is: Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. Another selected secondary category is: Rape for refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. As the case may be, in such cases, the non-Hindu man forces himself sexually on the Hindu woman when she refuses his advances and pressures to convert her religion. The rape of the woman is often seen as either a punishment for the woman refusing to convert. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case constituted a religiously motivated hate crime because religion was not incidental to the offence but operated as its driving purpose. The conduct focused on forcing a change of faith, placing the victim’s religious identity at the centre of the harm. Violence and intimidation were deployed to compel religious submission, demonstrating that belief itself was the target. The victim was a minor, which meant that consent and any genuine change of conscience were absent from the outset. Minors, due to their age and limited maturity, are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They lack the capacity to fully comprehend the long-term personal, social, and religious consequences of conversion. The perpetrator exploited this vulnerability deliberately, using manipulation and pressure to achieve religious conversion. The use of coercion against a minor to alter religious identity constituted a direct expression of religious hostility and justified the case’s inclusion in a hate crime tracker. Sexual violence was used as a mechanism to enforce conversion. Threats were explicitly linked to religious compliance, showing that fear and bodily harm were instruments to break resistance to changing faith. When violence was used to impose belief rather than to pursue a personal relationship, the offence crossed the threshold into religious persecution. The prolonged nature of the conduct further established the motive. The victim’s father stated that the acts continued for two years as part of love jihad. This duration reflected persistence and intent rather than a single lapse or impulsive act. Sustained pressure over time demonstrated a consistent objective of religious conversion. The method adopted showed planning and structure. Contact was initiated through social media, followed by grooming, manipulation, threats, and coercion. This sequence reflected a deliberate process designed to impose religious conformity rather than any consensual or spontaneous interaction. The involvement of an organised group reinforced the religious dimension of the crime. The court recorded the existence of an organised gang and the use of coordinated methods, including social media platforms, to target women for conversion. Organisation and repetition indicated ideological motivation and intent rather than coincidence. The impact of the offence extended beyond the individual victim. The court observed that crimes involving rape and forced religious conversion generated fear and social tension. Such broader societal harm is a defining characteristic of hate crimes, which damage communal trust and harmony in addition to violating individual rights. Finally, conversion was identified as a motive by both the victim’s father and the court. When violence was sustained over time to force religious change, and when that motive was formally recognised, the offence met the criteria of a religiously motivated hate crime rooted in hostility towards religious identity and freedom of belief. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was reported in the media. In this case, media reports did not specify the exact date on which the victim’s ordeal began. It was established that the conduct started two years prior. For documentation purposes, the incident date was therefore calculated from the earliest point recalled by the victim’s mother, and 18th March 2023, the date of media reporting, was selected as the indicative incident date. The number of victims has been recorded as one and the number of perpetrators as one for documentation purposes. However, the case materials indicated the existence of additional unreported victims, including the victim’s friends, and the involvement of more members within an organised gang. These could not be individually documented due to the absence of formal reporting or identifiable details.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
