Hindu woman and minor daughter lured, raped, and pressured for conversion by Muslim exorcist
Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, India 
20 March, 2025
Case Summary
In Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman and her minor daughter were lured under the guise of an exorcism and kidnapped by a Muslim exorcist named Saqir Hussain. The victim also revealed that she was raped multiple times and pressured to convert her to Islam by the accused. The incident occurred in Bilsi town on March 21, 2025, when the victim's husband had filed a complaint stating that the Muslim exorcist had lured and taken away his wife and minor daughter. Following this, the police launched a multi-state search operation, conducting raids across various districts. Finally, after three months of relentless efforts, the police were able to rescue the Hindu woman and her minor daughter. The accused was also arrested by the police. During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused had trapped the Hindu woman under the guise of exorcism and tantra-mantra. Furthermore, the Hindu woman also revealed that she was raped multiple times by the accused who also pressured her to convert her religion. The accused had planned to take her to a different location where he wanted to change her name and marry her. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing.
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: - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: - 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. The other sub-category relevant here 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman and her minor daughter were lured under the guise of exorcism by a Muslim exorcist. By pretending to be a spiritual healer, he gained access to vulnerable women who were likely seeking help or relief from personal problems. This form of deception represents a gross abuse of religious trust, where spiritual authority is weaponised for coercion, exploitation, and conversion. Such manipulation in the name of exorcism reflects a serious breach of trust and highlights a troubling misuse of religion for personal gain. In this case, the trust given to religious figures, especially in smaller or more traditional settings, was misused for acts of sexual violence and religious conversion, making the situation deeply exploitative. The sexual exploitation of the Hindu woman in this case was not random but systematically orchestrated through religious deception and manipulation. The use of spiritual pretexts allowed him to bypass rational scrutiny and build emotional control over the victim, which he then used to push her toward renouncing her faith. Furthermore, she was pressured for religion conversion and was raped by the accused. Her minor daughter was also kept hostage. Here, rape and the minor daughter were used as tools to engineer religious conversion. By taking her away, he isolated her from her cultural roots and the support system she had. This, combined with the kidnapping of the minor daughter and sexual violence, was an effort to psychologically break down the victim, where her only option is to accede to the accused's conversion demands. Thus, rape and torture of her minor daughter were not just acts of physical violence but a tool of religious domination, aimed at subjugating her into submission. The plan to change her name was not an isolated act but part of a broader pattern to alienate her from her Hindu identity. Renaming is a symbolic form of religious and cultural erasure after conversion. It is a commonly employed tactic in cases of forced religious conversion to sever all links with the victim’s original faith and community. These 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. Thus, within such frameworks, converting a non-believer is not just desirable but perceived as a moral obligation. 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: Media reports state that the victim's husband filed a complaint on March 21, 2025, stating that her wife and daughter had been taken away by the accused, although no exact date is mentioned as to when the victim came into contact with the accused. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—March 21, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on June 29, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
