Minor Hindu girl sexually exploited, pressured for religious conversion and marriage by Muslim man
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
29 May, 2025
Case Summary
In Pilhibit, Uttar Pradesh, a 14-year-old Hindu girl was sexually exploited and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Shanu Ansari. According to the reports, the minor girl was targeted by the Muslim man when she was visiting her grandmother's house during summer vacation. Shanu, who lived nearby, had been stalking the minor girl for several days and gradually befriended her and trapped her in a love trap. He then sexually exploited the minor girl and made videos of the incident. Furthermore, he also pressured her to convert to Islam. He told her that if she did not convert to Islam and marry him, he would make her video viral on social media. When the girl refused, he uploaded the obscene video on social media, causing deep distress to the family. Thus, the victim's father filed a complaint on May 30, 2025, against the accused. The police, acting promptly, arrested the accused under the POCSO Act, IT Act and other serious charges.
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: - 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. 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 minor Hindu girl was deliberately targeted for religious conversion and sexual exploitation by a Muslim man. He not only abused her physically but also threatened to upload her intimate visuals online if she refused to convert and marry him. The sustained pressure for conversion and marriage, especially with a minor, clearly shows that the victim was targeted because of her Hindu identity and her vulnerable position. The use of threats, of leaking her pictures online, and emotional blackmail were used as tools to strip the victim of her Hindu identity. It is also important to mention that since the victim, in this case, is a minor, there was an absence of both consent and a genuine change of conscience. It is a well-established fact that children are more susceptible to manipulation since they are still developing emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Their brains are not fully mature, making them more vulnerable to influence and less capable of critically evaluating information. Moreover, subtle manipulation tactics can be difficult to detect, making it challenging for parents to identify and address instances of religious manipulation. Consequently, cases involving religious manipulation of minors not only represent an infringement on an individual's religious freedom but also demonstrate a calculated strategy of targeting those who are less able to resist or understand the long-term implications of conversion, making it a significant case of religious-motivated hate crime. Furthermore, it is important to note that any form of relationship with a minor, when the other person is an adult, is strictly illegal under the POCSO Act. These actions of the accused stemmed 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. This mindset does not merely tolerate the existence of another faith but seeks its erasure or assimilation. As a result, Hindus are often targeted not because of who they are as individuals, but because of their religious identity. The violence, deception, or humiliation inflicted in such cases is therefore not random, but part of a broader ideological hostility toward Hinduism and its symbols, practices, and adherents. Here, too, the predatory actions stemmed from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith, which is why this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.
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 
