Minor Hindu girl commits suicide after being harassed and physically assaulted by Muslim classmate; pressured to abandon Hindu rituals and wear burqa
Surguja, Chhattisgarh, India 
8 September, 2022
Case Summary
In the Salka village of Surguja district, Chhattisgarh, a 16-year-old Hindu girl committed suicide after being constantly harassed and physically assaulted by a Muslim youth. The accused stopped her from going to temples, prohibited her from performing Hindu rituals and pressured her to wear a burqa. According to reports, the minor girl was studying in Class 11 and was trapped in a relationship by her Muslim classmate. She returned home to celebrate the Karma festival. However, on September 9, 2025, she committed suicide by hanging herself in a room of her house. The police were informed immediately, and a team of two doctors conducted a postmortem and preserved the viscera for further investigation. The victim's family stated that the victim committed suicide after being increasingly harassed by her Muslim boyfriend, with whom she was in an abusive relationship for over three years. He had prohibited her from participating in Hindu religious rituals, harassed her whenever she attempted to perform them. He stopped her from going to temples and pressured her to wear a burqa. He also physically assaulted her the day before her death. Following a complaint by the family, the police registered a case under Section 108 BNS and took the Muslim accused into custody. Members of Hindu organisations described the incident as a case of love jihad and called for strict action. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Suicide for being forced to or pressured to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with a 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 pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, unable to bear the pressure/threat/violence being mounted by the non-Hindu partner to convert, the Hindu woman commits suicide. In such cases, often, threats are also given to the family members of the Hindu woman. Since such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim, leading to the woman committing suicide, these cases are categorized as a hate crime. The other sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to wear burqa. 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 other sub-category relevant here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Family claims grooming and 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 constitutes a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime. The accused forced the minor girl to wear a burqa and prohibited her from visiting temples or performing Hindu rituals. In this case, even though there is no official mention of religious conversion, it is obvious from the actions of the accused that he was subtly manipulating and pressuring the victim to convert to Islam. He continued harassing her during the course of their relationship. His coercive behaviour and harassment became so relentless and intense that the girl, unable to bear the mental and emotional pressure any longer, was driven to commit suicide. The accused prohibited her from visiting temples and performing Hindu rituals, and harassed her when she did. This was an attempt to alienate the Hindu victim from her religious identity through the use of intimidation or violence. Simultaneously, by forcing her to wear a burqa, he was exposing her to an Islamic lifestyle so that she would become easier to convert in future. In such cases, harassment or intimidation serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This is not random; it is systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. This shows the deep-seated hatred in the mind of the accused, who was determined to convert the girl at any cost. His persistent harassment indicates not only his jihadi mindset but also a deeper ideological animosity directed against the girl’s Hindu religious identity. It is further important to note 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 or being in a relationship, 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 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. In Islamic theology, idol worship, referred to as Shirk, is regarded as the gravest sin. The Qur'an strictly condemns it, and Islamic teachings emphasise the complete rejection of any practice associated with idol worship. Muslims are taught from a young age that idolatry is an unforgivable sin. While this belief is central to the Islamic faith, it has at times led to intolerance and hostility towards idol-worshipping religions, particularly Hinduism. Thus, when Muslims, including minors, attempt to convert Hindu girls, it reflects more than personal disrespect; it is a manifestation of deep-seated theological contempt against the Hindu religion, stemming from the Islamic doctrinal view that idol worship is impure and offensive. 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: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that they were in a relationship for three years. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—September 9, 2022—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on September 12, 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
1
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
