Minor Hindu girl lured away, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off through Nikah by Muslim man

Case ID : e274eaa | Location : Lakhimpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 5 June, 2025

Case ID : e274eaa

Lakhimpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

5 June, 2025

Minor Hindu girl lured away, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off through Nikah by Muslim man

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Conversion of minor

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

In the Neemgaon police station area of the Kheri district, Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old Hindu girl was lured away by a Muslim man named Naseer. Subsequently, she was forcibly converted to Islam and made to marry him. A Maulana (Muslim cleric) was also involved, conducting the Nikah ceremony, an Islamic marriage ceremony. According to media reports, the victim’s father lodged a complaint against unknown persons on 9th June 2025 after his daughter went missing. A case was registered, and an investigation commenced. During the investigation, it was discovered that the victim had been forcibly converted to Islam and had been married off in a Nikah ceremony to Naseer. Following these developments, the police arrested Naseer, a resident of Kodhaiya village. The police then added charges related to religious conversion to the already existing case. It was also revealed that a Maulana and a few other unidentified people were involved in both the forced conversion and the Nikah ceremony. However, at the time of writing this report, the police had not taken any action against the Maulana or the other accused. Local residents expressed the view that action should be taken against all those involved in this case. Inspector Jitendra Pal Yadav and Constable Akshay Kumar from the Neemgaon police station participated in the arrest operation. SI Jitendra Pal Singh also confirmed that a case had been registered based on the victim’s father's complaint, and the main accused had been arrested and sent to jail.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- 'Conversion of minor'. 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. The other subcategory selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Forced to do Nikah. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. In this case, a minor Hindu girl was lured away by a Muslim man named Naseer. Subsequently, the perpetrator, along with a Maulana (an Islamic cleric), forcibly converted her to Islam, after which she was married to Naseer. It is crucial to highlight that the victim was a minor, which meant that the element of genuine consent or a considered change of faith was absent from the outset. Owing to their young age and lack of maturity, minors are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They are unlikely to fully comprehend the lifelong implications of converting to another religion or entering a relationship with an adult. Naseer deliberately exploited this vulnerability. He manipulated, lured, and persuaded her to elope with him. This case, therefore, exemplified how coercion and manipulation were employed to achieve religious conversion, marking it clearly as a crime driven by religious animosity. The Hindu girl was not only lured away and forcibly converted to Islam but was also married off in a Nikah ceremony to Naseer. Such actions were not isolated or random; they directly attacked the victim’s religious identity and sense of belonging within her community. The combination of abduction, religious conversion under duress, and marriage without consent constituted an assault not merely on the individual freedom of the victim but also on the dignity and security of the entire Hindu community. These targeted acts are rooted in deep-seated animosity towards the victim due to their Hindu religious identity, making it a case of a religiously motivated crime. Forced conversion to Islam, followed by Nikah, was far more than a legal violation. It amounted to the erasure of the victim’s faith, culture, and personal autonomy, especially when inflicted upon a vulnerable minor. Forcibly converting someone and compelling them to marry in a religious ceremony, absent of genuine free will, constituted a religiously motivated crime. Furthermore, the involvement of a Maulana (Muslim cleric) and other accomplices in this case revealed a meticulously planned scheme, rather than an isolated event. Their active roles in orchestrating the forced conversion and arranging the Nikah signalled premeditation and a shared intent to target a member of the Hindu community. This collective participation elevated the offence from an individual crime to an organised hate crime, demonstrating an effort designed to intimidate and destabilise the Hindu community at large. Such actions are rooted in religious animosity towards the Hindu community, their faith, and the community members, making it a clear case of a religiously motivated crime. Since this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database. Disclaimer: According to media reports, the perpetrators included Naseer, the Maulana, and other unidentified individuals. However, the exact number of perpetrators was not specified. Therefore, for the purpose of documentation, we have used a conservative estimate and recorded the perpetrator count as ‘2’.