Hindu woman gang-raped, forced to convert to Islam and assaulted by Muslim men in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
3 February, 2025
Case Summary
In Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was gang-raped, pressured for religious conversion and subjected to death threats and physical assault by three Muslim men, namely Farman, Salman and Peeru alias Waseem. In this case, the team at Hinduphobia Tracker called Kotwali Dehat police at Saharanpur and verified that the victim was a Hindu female who was gang-raped and forced to convert to Islam by three Muslim men in 2025. Thereafter, the victim lodged a complaint against the three Muslim accused, Farman, Salman and Peeru alias Waseem. Acting on the complaint, the accused were arrested, and the matter was still pending before the competent court. As per the reports, the victim again filed a complaint with the Kotwali Dehat police station, demanding strict action against the accused and protection for herself. According to the victim, a case had already been registered (in 2025) against Farman, son of Shaukat, Salman, son of Gulzar, and Piru, alias Waseem, son of Haseen, on charges including gang rape and forced religious conversion. After the accused were released from custody on bail, they threatened and assaulted the victim. She stated in the complaint that on 4 February 2026, at around 6 p.m., she was returning home from her village when the accused stopped her and verbally abused her. To avoid an escalating dispute, she left the scene. Around 9 p.m. that same night, while returning from the District Vice President's residence, the accused again surrounded her and assaulted her. The victim stated that the accused pressured her to withdraw the case and threatened to kill her. She somehow managed to escape and save her life. She stated that there was grave danger to her life and property. Based on the victim's complaint, the police launched an investigation. She filed a report against the accused and demanded strict legal action and security.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in the case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category selected is: 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 under it 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 other primary category selected is: Attack not resulting in death. The sub-category selected is: Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save a victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. This case constituted a clear instance of religiously motivated crime, as the Hindu victim was forcibly converted to Islam by the Muslim perpetrators through gang rape and violence. The conversion did not stem from personal choice but was imposed via brutal coercion, with the gang rape serving as a deliberate tool to shatter her spirit and resistance. By employing extreme sexual violence to compel a change from Hinduism to Islam, the perpetrators revealed profound religious animosity, viewing the victim's Hindu faith as inferior and targetable for eradication. This forcible attempt to alter her religious identity underscored Islamic supremacist motives, where Hinduism was treated as an obstacle to be violently overcome, demonstrating calculated hatred towards her beliefs and a desire to dominate her through faith suppression. The gang rape exemplified religious animosity by aiming to humiliate the victim specifically for her Hindu identity and coerce submission to the perpetrators' conversion demands. Sexual violence here functioned not as random aggression but as a weaponised tactic to degrade her faith, breaking her will to enforce Islamic dominance. Such use of rape for proselytisation reflected deep-seated prejudice, targeting her religious autonomy to strip away Hindu dignity and replace it with submission, marking it as hate-driven aggression against her heritage. After release from jail on bail, the accused targeted the Hindu woman, brutally assaulted her and issued death threats solely because she spoke out, leading to their arrest for gang rape and forced conversion. Attacking her for opposing Muslim radicals, protecting her dignity, life, and religious identity, highlighted motives against Hindus resisting coercion. This assault sought to break the spirit of Hindu victims standing against religiously motivated sexual violence and injustice, punishing defiance of conversion attempts and affirming it as a targeted hate crime. Given that this case met several parameters of a hate crime, it was added to the Hate Crime Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal begins rather than when it is reported by the media. None of the media sources covering this case specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. The Hinduphobia Tracker team verified with the police that the victim was gang-raped and targeted for forced conversion in 2025. Reports only specified that on 4 February 2026, she was assaulted and threatened by the accused again. Based on this information, an indicative date of 4 February 2025 was selected as the date of the incident. This is recorded for documentation purposes only.
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 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
