Minor Hindu girl harassed, abducted, and pressured for religious conversion by Muslim man in Aligarh

Case ID : e275078 | Location : Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 14 August, 2025

Case ID : e275078

Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India

14 August, 2025

Minor Hindu girl harassed, abducted, and pressured for religious conversion by Muslim man in Aligarh

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Conversion of minor

Case Summary

In Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was abducted, harassed, and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Mohammad Rehan and his cousin Tamanna. According to reports, the girl had gone to attend the Independence Day programme at her school. During this time, Rehan and his cousin Tamanna made the victim smell something, after which she lost her senses. After this, both the accused forcibly took her away by making her wear a burqa to avoid detection. Since the victim was still in her school dress, she was wearing her white school shoes. This made locals suspicious, and they stopped the accused. When inquired, the accused claimed that the victim was his sister and that he was taking her to Deoband. However, the victim herself revealed the truth, after which the police were informed. Both were taken into custody and brought to the police station. Since the girl was a minor, her family was informed. The girl’s family arrived promptly and filed a written complaint against Rehan, stating that he had lured their daughter, drugged her, and attempted to kidnap her. As of the date of writing this report, a case was registered by the police under sections of kidnapping and the Uttar Pradesh Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act. The investigation was ongoing, and legal action would follow based on the findings. Furthermore, it was revealed that the accused had been harassing the minor girl for quite a long time. They used to study in the same college, where they got acquainted with each other. The accused was constantly harassing her, talking about Islam and was pressuring her for religious conversion. Despite her resistance, the accused did not mend his ways. The college administration expelled him for his behaviour, but he continued to follow and harass the victim. On the day of the incident, finding the victim alone, he attempted to kidnap her.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category relevant in this case 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 other sub-category relevant here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor. 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was abducted and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man. The accused repeatedly spoke about Islam and pressured her to convert. Since the victim was a minor, 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 such 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 harassment and the act of abduction were not random, but tools designed to induce conversion. By harassing and mentally tormenting the victim, the accused was attempting to break her down emotionally, physically, and spiritually so that she could be converted more easily. The kidnapping attempt was also meant to isolate her from her family, social circle, and cultural identity, thereby weakening her resistance. Isolation has often been used as a tactic in cases of predatory proselytisation, where the removal of the victim from her environment creates dependence on the perpetrator. These actions were not random; they were systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity 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. Disclaimer: Media reports do not specify when the victim's ordeal began or when she first came into contact with the accused. Therefore, for the purpose of documenting this case, we have recorded the date as the day she was kidnapped — August 15, 2025. While media coverage of the incident surfaced on August 16, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.