Minor Hindu girl lured, raped, and forcibly converted by Muslim man; forced to recite Kalma and wear burqa
Kaushambi District, Uttar Pradesh, India 
24 July, 2023
Case Summary
In Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was lured, raped, pressured for religious conversion, and Nikah by a Muslim man named Mohammad Kaif. The victim was forced to wear a burqa and recite the Kalma. According to reports, the Hindu girl came into contact with Mohammad Kaif about 2 years ago, through her friend Alfia, who was Kaif's sister. At that time, the Hindu girl was only 17 years old. The accused trapped the minor girl in a relationship and exploited her. After the Hindu girl got married, Kaif started threatening her that he would kill her husband and was pressuring her to meet him. One day, the accused deceptively called the Hindu girl to his house through her friend Alfia, where Kaif, Irfan, and Shah Alam were already present. There, she was pressured for religious conversion and nikah by the accused. When the victim refused, she was raped by the three Muslim men, who also recorded a video of it. After this, the accused called a Maulana and forced the victim to recite verses from the Quran and made to wear a burqa, declaring that she had now been converted to Islam. The accused continued to threaten the victim and demanded that she speak to him over the phone. When the Hindu girl refused to stay in contact with him or speak to him over the phone, Kaif shared the explicit video with one of his accomplices. Both Kaif and his accomplice then circulate the obscene content on social media platforms, leading to public humiliation and psychological trauma for the victim. After the ordeal, the victim immediately approached the police and filed a complaint. The police promptly took cognisance of the matter and arrested Mohammad Kaif. The burqa used during the forced conversion was also recovered, and a case was registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Information Technology Act, and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act. During interrogation, the accused admitted to trapping the victim, sexually assaulting her, blackmailing her with explicit content, and attempting to forcibly convert her. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing, and further arrests were underway.
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 - 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 second sub-category selected here - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. 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 primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices. 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. The second sub-category selected here is - Rape for refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. As the case may be, in such cases, the non-Hindu man forces himself sexually on the Hindu woman when she refuses his advances and pressures to convert her religion. The rape of the woman is often seen as either a punishment for the woman refusing to convert. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The third sub-category selected here is - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was lured, raped, pressured for religious conversion, and Nikah by a Muslim man. The victim was lured to the house of the accused by her friend Alfia, where the accused and his accomplices were already present. There, she was pressured for Nikah and religious conversion. In the Islamic faith, marriage to a non-Muslim woman is generally prohibited. Therefore, many times, non-Muslim women are forcibly converted to Islam by the Muslim perpetrator so as to make them eligible for Nikah. When the victim resisted these demands, she was subjected to gang rape by the accused and his friends. In such cases, sexual violence serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention is to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she can be converted. This is not random violence; it is systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. After raping her, the accused called a Maulana who forced her to recite the Kalma and wear a burqa. These acts were symbolic and meant to represent her conversion to Islam. Making her wear a burqa was essentially a statement that she was no longer a Hindu girl. It was a forced erasure of her Hindu identity. These were not random acts of humiliation but deliberate actions of religious subjugation. Furthermore, she was blackmailed with the explicit video in case she decided to tell anyone further, adding to the ordeal she already faced. Such actions reflect a deeper, ideological motive, one that is rooted not in personal desire but in religious hostility towards Hinduism. The victim was targeted precisely because she was Hindu, and every step of the crime, from grooming to conversion, was rooted in an animosity towards her faith. Further complicating the crime was that she was targeted when she was just a minor. She was lured into a relationship, groomed, and exploited when she was just 17 years old. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that exploits the child’s naivety and dependence. In such cases, minors are targeted and groomed so they can be easily converted in the future. Such 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. This aligns with the broader phenomenon of predatory proselytisation, where conversion is pursued not through theological persuasion but through deceit, emotional coercion, inducement, or sexual violence. 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 suggest that the victim’s ordeal began approximately two years before she filed the FIR, although no specific date or month is mentioned. For the purpose of documentation, we have therefore used July 25, 2023, as a notional start date to mark the beginning of her suffering. Since the Hinduphobia Tracker records cases based on when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than when the case became public, and given that the FIR was lodged on July 25, 2025, we have taken two years prior to that as the incident date. Disclaimer - Since the Hinduphobia tracker records incidents based on when the victim's ordeal began, the victim would be considered a minor in this case.
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
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
