Case Summary

In Sigra, Kashi (Varanasi), a Hindu woman and her family were harassed and coerced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man who targeted the victim’s daughter for forced nikah. Hinduphobia tracker has a copy of the FIR, according to which, the harassment began ten years ago when the woman first met Qadri during a period of illness. Over time, he began to visit her frequently and misbehaved with her, verbally abused her, and physically assaulted her on multiple occasions. He repeatedly pressured her to convert her son to Islam and demanded that her daughter be married to him after religious conversion, insisting that she had “come of age.” On 23rd July 2025, Qadri forcibly entered the family’s residence and, according to the complaint, assaulted the woman while issuing death threats. He said, “If your daughter does not agree to the nikah, I will kill you all and throw your bodies away.” The FIR further reports that on 29 July 2025, the accused went to the woman’s husband’s workplace where he again issued threats, saying, “If the nikah doesn’t happen tomorrow, I’ll shoot you with ten bullets.” He also physically assaulted him at the location. The woman revealed that Qadri had exercised a form of psychological and spiritual control over her through an amulet he had given her years earlier. According to her statement, only after her daughter removed the amulet a month ago did the control begin to wane, and the family slowly started to regain clarity and resist his coercion. The accused also raped the woman. The ongoing harassment and shame had led to the woman's isolation from her own brothers and pushed her to the brink of suicide. Following the complaint, police arrested Dr. Naeem Qadri on 31 July 2025 and sent the complainant for medical examination. Sigra Station in-charge Sanjay Kumar Mishra confirmed the registration of the FIR and stated that Qadri is being interrogated and will be booked under relevant legal provisions.

Case Images

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category in this case is: Predatory proselytisation. The first subcategory under this is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Within it, the tertiary category selected is - 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 second subcategory under this 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. In this case, the Muslim accused maintained a decade-long relationship with the Hindu woman and her family by posing as both a medical professional and a religious healer. Over this extended period, he manipulated the family psychologically, using tools such as a taweez (amulet) to exert spiritual control. This created a fiduciary relationship, which he systematically exploited to erode the family’s attachment to their Hindu faith and to induce them to accept Islamic practices. The slow, persistent pressure to convert the daughter and the son, without the use of immediate violence, fits the pattern of religious grooming—where emotional dependency and spiritual manipulation are weaponised against the victim’s existing faith. This process of religious indoctrination, masked as healing and guidance, reflects deep-seated animosity towards Hinduism and aims to replace it with allegiance to another religion, thus constituting a hate crime. The Muslim accused not only targeted the Hindu woman and her family with threats and coercion for religious conversion and nikah of her daughter, but also raped the woman, an act that reflects deep-seated religious and gendered animosity. The sexual assault was not merely an act of violence, but one that exploited the victim's religious and social vulnerability with the intent to dominate, humiliate, and coerce. The attempt to forcefully convert the family, particularly through forced nikah and sexual violence, constitutes a systematic abuse rooted in hatred against their Hindu identity. The accused physically assaulted the woman and her husband, issued repeated death threats, and attempted to force the daughter into a religious conversion and nikah under duress. The threats—including the statement that the family would be shot with "ten bullets" if the daughter refused conversion and marriage—clearly targeted the victims' refusal to abandon their Hindu identity. These acts of intimidation were not random; they were rooted in the family's religious identity and their resistance to conversion. This targeted harassment with the intent to forcibly alter the family's faith constitutes not only a violation of their individual rights but also a clear act of religious hostility. Thus, the combination of long-term manipulation and overt coercion to induce religious conversion renders this incident a textbook case of a religiously motivated hate crime Such incidents are not isolated. They represent a clear pattern of religiously motivated targeting of Hindu families, wherein the goal is not only conversion but the complete disintegration of Hindu identity from within. When trust is weaponised to alter faith, and coercion is used to cement that change, the result is not spiritual transformation but identity erasure. This is a crime not just against individuals, but against the Hindu civilisational continuity. It degrades the foundational rights of Hindus to practise and preserve their religion within their own homes and communities. Thus, the combination of long-term manipulation and overt coercion to induce religious conversion renders this incident a textbook case of a religiously motivated hate crime Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, but it mentions that the accused assaulted the victim on 23rd July 2025. Since this is the earliest date mentioned, we are considering this as when the victim's ordeal began and using this as the incident date. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 31st July 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.