Minor Hindu girl befriended, coerced to convert to Islam and do nikah by Muslim man in Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh
Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh, India 
16 April, 2025
Case Summary
In the Shahpur police station area of Burhanpur district, Madhya Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl from the Dalit community was befriended on social media by a Muslim man named Sheikh Arshad. The accused blackmailed her with her photos and pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him through nikah (Islamic marriage). She was also subjected to prolonged harassment for eight months by the Muslim accused. After months of mental distress, she disclosed everything to her family on Tuesday (17 February 2026) evening. The victim stated that in April 2025, Sheikh Arshad sent her a friend request on Snapchat and initiated a conversation. Within a few days, he also contacted her on Instagram, and regular chatting began between them. In July 2024, they met for the first time at a restaurant in Burhanpur. During their meetings, Sheikh Arshad took photographs with the student. He later used these photographs to blackmail her, threatening to make them viral, and began pressuring her to convert to Islam and undergo nikah with him. He took her to various locations, including cafes, Asirgarh, and Thakur Khamla. During these meetings, he also pressured her to establish sexual relations with him. For approximately eight months, Sheikh Arshad continued harassing the minor girl through Instagram and Snapchat. He repeatedly threatened to make her photos and videos viral if she did not comply with his demands for conversion to Islam. The continuous pressure and threats caused her severe mental distress. After enduring months of mental harassment, the girl finally told her family members about the entire matter on the evening of 17 February 2026. Her family immediately took her to the Shahpur police station and filed a formal complaint against Sheikh Arshad. Reports confirmed that Sheikh Arshad was the son of Sheikh Shakir, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor of Shahpur Nagar Parishad. Based on the complaint, the police registered a case against him under the Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Act. Station In-charge Akhilesh Mishra confirmed that the case was registered under various serious sections. Police searched for Sheikh Arshad, who was absconding. Police examined social media chats and other digital evidence. Following the case coming to light, outrage spread in the area, and various Hindu organisations demanded strict action and threatened protests if the perpetrator was not arrested soon. The police assured that Arshad would be arrested and sent to jail soon.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". The sub-category here is "Harassment, threats and 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 sub-category for this case is "Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination''. Under this, the tertiary categories 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 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 primary category this case qualifies for is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The subcategory selected here is "Brainwashed and/or Groomed". The tertiary categories selected are "Conversion of Minor" and "Rape and sexual assault/harassment". n 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. The other subcategory selected is "Forced conversion before marriage". The tertiary category here is "Forced to do Nikah". 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 The other sub-category here 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. This case qualifies as a hate crime because the Muslim perpetrator's actions targeted a Hindu minor girl specifically due to her religious identity, aiming to eradicate that identity through coercion, blackmail, and sustained pressure. The conduct centred on compelling her to convert to Islam and undergo nikah (Islamic marriage), with religion as the defining factor in all demands, making the harm identity-based rather than merely interpersonal. The victim was a minor Hindu girl, meaning the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was absent from the outset. Her age made her particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. Minors lack the maturity to comprehend the lifelong consequences of converting to another religion, engaging in sexual relations with an adult, or entering marriage through nikah. The Muslim perpetrator deliberately exploited this age-related vulnerability to groom her via social media, blackmail her with photos and videos, and pressure her for religious coercion, conversion, and sexual exploitation. This calculated predation reveals the crime's predatory and religiously motivated nature, as he weaponised her innocence specifically to attack and dismantle her Hindu identity. Luring the minor Hindu girl into friendship through Snapchat and Instagram served as the initial trap to force her conversion to Islam, exposing profound religious animosity towards her faith. This coercion went beyond persuasion; it demonstrated the perpetrator's deep-seated hatred for her Hindu religious identity, as he sought to eradicate every trace of her Hindu identity, devotional practices, family traditions, and spiritual connection to Hinduism. By pressuring a child to abandon her lifelong faith for Islamic conversion and nikah, he aimed to completely destroy her religious roots, replacing them with his own beliefs through sustained psychological torment over eight months. Such forced religious conversion targets the victim's core identity, stripping away her religious autonomy and cultural heritage, driven purely by contempt for what she represented as a Hindu. The nikah he forced upon her represented not genuine commitment but an additional layer of control to dominate her life and enforce conversion to Islam. This marriage demand intensified the religious targeting, as it required her to publicly renounce Hinduism and submit to his faith completely, ensuring permanent severance from her community and rituals. By making nikah contingent on abandoning her Hindu identity, the perpetrator revealed his supremacist mindset, viewing her faith as inferior and worthy only of obliteration. This calculated use of marriage as a tool for religious subjugation underscores the hate-driven intent, transforming personal exploitation into systematic erasure of her Hindu identity. The perpetrator employed blackmail as a ruthless weapon, clicking pictures with her during coerced meetings at cafes, Asirgarh, and Thakur Khamla, then threatening to make them viral unless she converted. This blackmailing tactic showcased his willingness to go to extreme lengths to shatter her resistance, employing digital terror specifically to compel religious change. Blackmailing a minor Hindu girl to forsake her faith demonstrates fanatical religious zeal, where no boundary existed in his mission to conquer her soul. The methodical escalation from friendship to threats proves the crime stemmed from obsessive hatred for her Hindu identity, amplifying its status as a religiously motivated hate crime. The victim also endured attempted sexual exploitation, as the accused pressured her for physical relations during these encounters. This was not mere gratification but a deliberate act to dominate and violate her due to her religious identity as a Hindu girl. Forcing sexual submission on a minor served to humiliate her faith, asserting power over her body and spirit while breaking her resistance to conversion. Such religiously profiled sexual violence weaponises intimacy to degrade Hindu identity, marking it as a targeted assault where her vulnerability as a young Hindu became the explicit reason for her suffering, cementing the hate crime classification. Overall, the minor Hindu girl suffered nearly eight months of relentless harassment through social media threats and in-person coercion for conversion and nikah. This prolonged torment reflected the perpetrator's supremacist attitude towards his own identity and utter disdain for her Hindu faith, which he deemed inferior and deserving of total destruction. Sustained pressure over months to abandon her beliefs through fear and isolation transformed coercion into systematic religious persecution. Harassment-driven conversion erodes the victim's dignity and agency, exposing the perpetrator's intent to inflict lasting spiritual harm solely because of her Hindu identity, fulfilling every criterion of a hate crime. Given that this case met multiple parameters of religiously motivated targeting, prolonged coercion, identity-based predation, and exploitation of vulnerability, it was added to the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal begins rather than when the media reports it. In this case, media reports did not specify the exact start date of the victim's suffering. However, they stated she first came into contact with the accused in April 2025. The only other date mentioned was 17 February 2026, when she broke down and revealed her ordeal to her parents. Based on this information, 17 April 2025 was selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.
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 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
