Minor Hindu girl trafficked to Bangladesh, tortured and coerced for religious conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu
Puri, Odisha, India 
26 November, 2021
Case Summary
In the Puri district of Odisha, a minor Hindu girl was lured, abducted and pressured for conversion by a Muslim man named Sabir, who pretended to be a Hindu. He tortured her for years and trafficked her across the international border to Bangladesh. According to the complaint filed by the victim's mother, Anjali Parida, the accused, identified as a Muslim man named Sabir, posed as a Bengali Hindu boy and developed contact with the 16-year-old Hindu girl through social media. By concealing his religious identity and background, he gradually gained the trust of the victim and deceived her into a relationship. On 27 November 2021, when the victim was just sixteen years old, she went missing from her home in Puri district. Her family immediately approached the police and filed a missing person complaint, initiating efforts to locate her. Despite the complaint and search efforts, the victim could not be traced. During their attempts to locate the victim, the family eventually obtained information that she had been taken to Cooch Behar, West Bengal. Acting on this information, the victim’s mother, Anjali Parida, travelled to the location with the hope of bringing her daughter back. However, the rescue attempt failed, and the accused managed to evade capture. Subsequently, it was revealed that the accused transported the victim across the international border into Bangladesh. Following this development, the family remained unable to secure her recovery for several years despite continuing efforts to pursue the matter with authorities. Over time, the victim managed to establish occasional contact with her mother through phone calls. During these conversations, she described severe physical and psychological torture and stated that she was being treated in an inhumane manner while being confined in Bangladesh. She also recounted that she was facing continuous pressure to convert to Islam. According to the family, the most recent conversation between the mother and daughter took place on 2 March 2026. During that call, the victim expressed fear for her life and pleaded with her mother to rescue her. Following these developments, Anjali Parida approached the office of the Superintendent of Police in Puri and appealed for urgent intervention from the authorities. She requested the administration and the government to initiate the necessary diplomatic and legal steps required to bring her daughter back safely from Bangladesh. Taking cognisance of the matter, Puri Superintendent of Police Prateek Singh stated that the police had begun examining the information provided by the family and would make efforts to coordinate with the relevant authorities, including the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, to trace and rescue the girl.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected 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. The other sub-category selected is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation and subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor and family claims grooming. 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. The second primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected within this 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor and family claims grooming. 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 deliberately targeted, deceived, abducted, and subjected to sustained coercion for conversion by a Muslim man named Sabir, who concealed his religious identity by posing as a Hindu. He subsequently abducted her and trafficked her across the international border to Bangladesh, where she was subjected to years of severe physical and psychological torture, as well as continuous pressure to convert to Islam. Firstly, it is important to note here that the victim 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 or consenting to a relationship, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Additionally, any supposed consent given for a relationship or elopement is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. 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. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that exploits the child’s naivety and dependence. Secondly, the accused deliberately concealed his religious identity and pretended to be a Bengali Hindu man to initiate and sustain a relationship with the minor Hindu girl. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. In such instances, identity concealment was not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused knew that the victim, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. Thirdly, the accused abducted the victim and took her to Cooch Behar in West Bengal before trafficking her across the international border to Bangladesh, where she was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture. Transporting the victim far away from her home served to isolate her from her family, community, and any immediate support system. Such deliberate isolation is a common tactic in coercive situations, as it leaves the victim vulnerable and dependent on the perpetrators. In such cases, violence and mental torture serve a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Fourth, the victim also revealed that she was facing continuous pressure to convert to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another was a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it is 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. 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. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. 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: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim came into contact with the accused. The earliest date mentioned is 27 November 2021, when she was abducted by the accused. Since Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began and not when it was reported, we have considered the date of the incident as 27 November 2021, though the media reported the incident on 10 March 2026.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 1
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
