Minor Hindu girl attempts suicide after being harassed for religious conversion by Muslim youth; prohibited from visiting temple or wearing bindi
Kollam, Kerala, India 
2 August, 2025
Case Summary
In Kottarakkara, Kollam district, a minor Hindu girl, a Class 12 student, was lured into a relationship and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth. The girl was prohibited from visiting temples and was offered money for religious conversion. Fed up with the harassment, she attempted to kill herself. According to reports, the Muslim youth approached the Hindu girl through Instagram, gradually drawing her into a relationship. After proposing to her, he began pressuring the girl for religious conversion. The victim was asked to abandon her Hindu beliefs and embrace Islam. She was also asked to travel to Ponnani to attend a 15-day class at the Sathyasaranam Centre as part of her conversion process. The accused explicitly told her that if she became Muslim, he would get money. One day, when the Hindu girl uploaded a picture of herself on social media wearing a tilak and bindi, the accused got furious at her, stating that he did not like such things and made her delete the picture. The accused repeatedly told her that she should not go to temples or wear bindis and instead should wear a hijab. He was also pressuring the girl to marry him. When the girl refused to convert, the Muslim youth began threatening her, claiming he had a large gang supporting him. Fed up with the abuse, the girl attempted suicide. After recovering physically, she confided in her mother about the entire ordeal. The family later disclosed that the girl had been living in fear for the past six months and had shown signs of severe distress, which they initially thought was due to academic pressure. The mother of the victim stated that someone from Alappuzha was behind this conspiracy. Following the revelation, the family filed a complaint with the police. However, the police attempted to mediate the incident rather than take firm action, prompting the family to escalate the matter to higher-ranking police officials. It was also reported that another girl had filed a separate complaint against the same youth at the Puyapally police station, indicating a possible pattern of predatory behaviour.
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 is - Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. The third sub-category selected here is - Suicide after pressure to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, owing to the humiliation or pressure/threat, the victim commits suicide. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The pressure/threat that is employed leads to the Hindu victim taking his own life. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing suicide by the victim, 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 wear hijab. 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 - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was lured into a relationship and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim youth. The accused lured the girl into a relationship with the ultimate goal of religious conversion. As is common in cases of religious grooming, the accused gradually built trust with the victim, manipulating her emotions to weaken her attachment to her religious and cultural identity. After drawing her into a relationship and proposing to her, he began coercing her to convert to Islam. The accused asked her to attend a 15-day class at the Sathyasaranam Centre in Ponnani as part of the conversion process. The Centre is known for being a hub of such conversion activities. The idea behind this invitation was to isolate the victim for a few days in a controlled and hostile environment where resistance would break down, making conversion inevitable. Furthermore, he also subtly offered her inducements to convert. He told her that he would get a large sum of money if she converted. Given that both were already in a relationship, this was essentially an offer to secure her future. Offering incentives for conversion, especially when directed at vulnerable individuals in need, shows that these incentives are not acts of kindness or charity. Instead, they are calculated moves to exploit vulnerable Hindus because of their religion. By providing inducements in exchange for conversion, the accused was effectively blackmailing the minor girl, who might have been desperate for assistance. Additionally, the accused actively attempted to erase her Hindu identity. He prohibited her from visiting temples and even from wearing a bindi, symbols that are deeply tied to the Hindu identity and culture. He got furious when the victim uploaded her picture wearing a bindi, to the point that he made her delete that picture and told her to wear a burqa. This was not a random remark, but a calculated attempt at alienating her from her Hindu identity. By stopping her from visiting temples and simultaneously asking her to wear a hijab, he was replacing her visible Hindu identity with Islamic cultural practices. He was essentially exposing the girl to Islamic cultural practices so as to make her conversion easier. When all such actions failed, the accused resorted to threats and abuse - ultimately pushing the girl to attempt suicide. This pattern is often seen in predatory proselytisation, where the conversion often starts with covert methods such as emotional manipulation, indoctrination, and gradually escalates to threats, abuse, or exploitation, depending on the victim's resistance to conversion. 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. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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. It is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. 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 without her volition. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that exploits the child’s naivety and dependence. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began six months ago, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—February 1, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on August 1, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
