Minor Hindu girl abducted, raped and forced to convert to Islam by Muslim man in Assi Ghat, Varanasi
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India 
6 March, 2026
Case Summary
A minor Hindu girl was abducted from the Assi Ghat area of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, by a Muslim man named Nabi Rasool alias Javed. He drugged her, raped her, took obscene photos and made videos of her. The victim was also forced to convert to Islam and marry him. After all this, he dumped the girl near a village and fled. The Hinduphobia Tracker team contacted the police and confirmed that the victim was a Hindu girl. The police also stated that the accused, Nabi Rasool, was arrested by the Bhelupur police. This incident came to light when the victim's father, a resident of a village in Chandauli's Baburi police station area, told the Bhelupur police that on 7 March 2026, his daughter had gone to Assi Ghat with her brother. Meanwhile, his son went to buy some items, and when he returned, his minor daughter was missing. After a lot of searching, Child Line and the police were informed. Then a call came from Javed using an unknown number, saying that his daughter was in his custody. He would convert her religion and forcibly marry her. On the morning of 8 March 2026, the accused left his daughter in an unconscious state near the village and fled. The daughter said that she was held hostage and raped. The accused also took her obscene videos and photos. She also said that the accused pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. Reports also confirmed that Nabi Rasool had an Instagram account with the name "Javed".
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected 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 subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories selected are- 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. This case stood as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because the perpetrator abducted a minor Hindu girl from Assi Ghat in Varanasi, raped her, and forced her to convert to Islam. The act of abducting the minor Hindu girl from Assi Ghat in Varanasi with the specific goal of targeting her Hindu identity showed direct religious animosity. The perpetrator pressured her to convert to Islam, which violated her religious autonomy by attempting to remove her right to practise Hinduism and impose Islam through coercion, threats, and captivity despite her resistance. This act treated her Hindu faith as inferior and targeted it for destruction, even though she did not convert, which qualifies as a hate crime since the motivation centred solely on her religion rather than any other factor. The intent to forcibly change her religion demonstrated the perpetrator's bias against Hinduism, as he held her against her will specifically to eliminate her religious identity. The rape in this case functioned as a hate crime, not just an act for sexual gratification. The perpetrator raped the Hindu girl to dominate and humiliate her because of her religious identity. He chose her as a Hindu specifically to assert control over her body and faith, using sexual violence to break her resistance to conversion. This type of religiously motivated rape treats the victim as an object of conquest to degrade her community, which makes it a hate crime driven by anti-Hindu bias and hatred rather than random lust. Taking obscene photos and videos served to blackmail the victim into conversion and forced marriage. The perpetrator recorded her in a compromised state to threaten exposure if she refused to convert or marry him, as he stated in his call to her family. This blackmail targeted her Hindu identity by using the images to force her permanent abandonment of Hinduism, showing his intent to control and subjugate her faith through fear. Such calculated use of evidence for religious coercion confirms the hate crime nature, as it extended the attack beyond sexual violence and force into lifelong psychological domination. It is also crucial to emphasise that the victim was a minor, meaning any notion of consent or genuine change of conscience was absent from the outset. Minors, with their young age and limited maturity, lack the capacity to grasp the lifelong implications of such coercion or to resist the overwhelming power imbalance. The Muslim perpetrator deliberately exploited this vulnerability, preying on her tender years to strip away her Hindu identity after subjecting her to sexual violence. This predatory focus on her immaturity made the religious motivation and predatory nature of the crime even more evident, as he attempted to reshape her faith identity against her will. These instances of predatory proselytisation stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths like Islam believe that any non-adherent to their faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert, making it a religiously motivated crime against Hindus. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
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 
