Dalit Hindu girl lured, assaulted, sexually exploited, and forcibly converted by Muslim youth in Kushinagar
Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India 
28 May, 2025
Case Summary
In Devkali village of Kushinagar district, Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit Hindu girl was lured into a relationship, sexually exploited and forcibly converted by a Muslim youth named Videshi alias Seraj. He also physically assaulted her and forcibly married her after converting her. According to reports, the accused trapped the Hindu girl, who belonged to the Scheduled caste community, in a love affair and eloped with her to Chennai about three months ago, in May 2025. Once there, he forcibly converted her religion to Islam, married her, and began subjecting her to severe physical and sexual abuse. The victim managed to secretly send a picture of her blood-soaked face to her father, pleading for rescue. Her father, Dheeraj, was shaken upon receiving the image and immediately approached the police and filed a complaint. He stated that Seraj was keeping her hostage in Chennai, beating her and sexually exploiting her. Earlier, when the case first came to light, the girl stated support for Seraj, likely under coercion, which led the police to refrain from taking action since both individuals were adults. However, the recent revelations by the victim revealed the extent of the abuse she was enduring. After the complaint by the father, the Hata Kotwali police registered the case and dispatched a team to rescue her. The investigating officer, Inspector Ram Sahai Chauhan, confirmed that a case of kidnapping and exploitation was already on record against the accused and assured that further action would be taken once the girl was safely returned.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory under this is: Forced conversion before marriage. 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 pressurising 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 subcategory under this is: Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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, sexually exploited, and forcibly converted by the Muslim accused. He trapped her in a relationship and took her to Chennai in an effort to isolate her from her family, her cultural identity, and her social support system. Once there, he subjected her to repeated physical and sexual abuse. In such cases, sexual exploitation and physical violence serve as manipulative tactics designed to strip the victim of agency and force her into religious conversion. The purpose is to break the victim down emotionally, physically, and spiritually so that she becomes more susceptible to conversion. These actions are not merely personal crimes; they are rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. The act of pressuring the Hindu victim to convert to Islam for marriage glaringly showcases the religious motivation behind this crime. Conversion here was not a matter of personal belief but of coercion and abuse, revealing the animosity that the Muslim perpetrator harboured towards the Hindu girl because of her religious identity. Such acts show that the victim was deliberately targeted, isolated, and sexually exploited with the underlying agenda of religious 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. 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 state that the victim's ordeal began when she was lured into a relationship and taken to Chennai by the accused about three months ago, in May 2025, though no exact date is provided. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, May 29, 2025, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on August 29, 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 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
