Hindu girl sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion; Muslim juvenile posed as Hindu on Instagram to trap victim
Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
4 February, 2026
Case Summary
A boy posed as a Hindu on Instagram to trap a Hindu girl into a relationship and then forced her to convert under the pretext of marriage. The accused had come from Banda to meet a girl in a village under the Dehat Kotwali area. When villagers caught him, it was discovered that he was not a Hindu. He was handed over to the police. The girl’s mother filed a complaint accusing him of luring the minor away, assaulting her, and attempting to convert her religion. On Saturday, February 7 2026, the police sent two juvenile offenders to a juvenile reform home. The mother of the minor girl, a resident of the village, submitted a complaint at the police station on February 5, stating that the boy, a resident of Banda, had befriended her daughter on Instagram while pretending to be Hindu and used to talk to her regularly. After communicating with her on the phone, he came to meet her and took her a short distance away from her home, where he assaulted her. The boy allegedly lured her with the promise of marriage following religious conversion. He had also come with an accomplice. When he was caught and questioned, he admitted that he was not Hindu, after which he was handed over to the police. Dehat Kotwal Amit Mishra stated that an FIR was registered under the POCSO Act, along with charges of assault and attempted religious conversion. Two juvenile offenders were apprehended and presented before the Juvenile Justice Board.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". The first sub-category this case qualifies for is Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories here are "Family claims grooming", "Rape and/or sexual harassment" and "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 sub-category this case falls under 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 primary category this case falls under is "Crimes against women in relationships or other sexual crimes. The sub-category that the case falls in here is "Man pretends to be Hindu". When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Another sub-category this case falls under is "Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories are "Family claims grooming", Rape and sexual assault" and "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. This case qualifies as a hate crime because the actions of the perpetrators were directly linked to the religious identity of the victims and involved targeted coercion aimed at altering that identity. The offence was not limited to individual misconduct or personal wrongdoing; it combined religious conversion pressure with sexual exploitation, making religion a central factor in how the victims were selected and harmed. The investigation revealed that the accused approached and interacted with girls in a manner that exceeded ordinary social contact. During these interactions, religious influence and pressure to convert were applied, indicating that the victims were targeted because they belonged to a different faith. This places the offence within the framework of predatory proselytisation, where personal relationships are used as tools to weaken religious boundaries and impose conversion. The inclusion of sexual exploitation further aggravates the offence. Sexual misconduct was used alongside religious pressure, creating a situation where the victims’ bodily autonomy and freedom of belief were both violated. This combination demonstrates an abuse of power that exploits vulnerability while simultaneously attempting to erase or replace religious identity. The crime also reflects grooming and manipulation, as the perpetrators gradually built familiarity and influence before introducing religious demands. Such methods rely on deception and psychological control rather than open consent, which is a recognised pattern in conversion-related hate crimes. Because the victims were targeted as Hindus, pressured to abandon their faith, and subjected to exploitation in the process, the offence constitutes religiously motivated targeting. The harm inflicted was not incidental but directly connected to religious identity, which is why this case is recorded as a hate crime against Hindus in the Hinduphobia Tracker database. Disclaimer: As the exact timeline of the incident has not been clearly specified in the available reports, the date of the case has been recorded as February 5, which is the day the formal complaint was registered with the authorities. This date is being used solely for documentation and record-keeping purposes.
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
