Minor Hindu girl lured away, forcibly converted to Islam, and married by Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh
Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
15 September, 2025
Case Summary
In Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a 13‑year‑old Hindu girl was lured away through manipulation by a Muslim man named Yaseen. Following this, he forcibly converted the girl to Islam and married her in a nikah ceremony, an Islamic marriage ceremony. Following this, the Muslim accused also changed the Hindu victim's name to Rukhsana. According to media reports, the victim, a resident of the Ramnagar Godwa police station area in Sultanpur, lived with her family in a rented house near the police lines and was a ninth‑grade student. Yaseen, a resident of Karaundiya, had been attempting to lure and manipulate her daily. The young girl, unable to understand his intentions, did not inform her parents regarding this. On 16th September 2025, when the girl did not return home from school, her worried father went to look for her. He found her standing with Yaseen at the entrance of a park. When the father asked her to come home, Yaseen became aggressive. He declared that she had converted to Islam, was now named Rukhsana, and would go home with him. This led to a verbal altercation between Yaseen and the girl’s father. Seeing the commotion, passers‑by intervened, apprehended Yaseen, and took him to the police station. The police registered a case against him under various sections and presented him in court on 17th September 2025, after which he was sent to judicial custody.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is- Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation, or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category selected is- 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. The other subcategory selected 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. In this case, it is important to note that the victim was a minor, which meant the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was absent from the very beginning. Minors, because of their young age and lack of maturity, are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They cannot fully grasp the long‑term implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator deliberately targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the Hindu victim. This makes it clear that the act was one of force and manipulation aimed at religious conversion, and therefore a blatant act of religious hate, making it a religiously motivated crime. Secondly, the victim was lured away and forcibly converted to Islam. The purpose of this act was to destroy her religious identity. The fact that the accused specifically chose a Hindu girl for the purpose of forced religious conversion revealed his intent to strip her of her Hindu identity and impose an Islamic one upon her. Forced conversions such as this do not occur in a vacuum; they are rooted in deep‑seated hostility towards the faith of the victim, which makes this a clear case of a crime driven by religious hatred. Thirdly, the accused did not stop at forcing the conversion. He also conducted a nikah, an Islamic marriage, with the underage victim and changed her name to Rukhsana. These actions made it evident that he sought to erase her Hindu identity entirely and impose a manufactured Islamic identity of his own choosing. The religious motivations behind the crime were therefore undeniable. Forced conversions are a direct violation of the religious autonomy of a Hindu victim. Conversion, when not stemming from free will or inner conviction but instead forced through coercion, manipulation, or deceit, falls squarely into the category of religiously motivated hate crimes. As this incident meets the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it is being categorised and recorded under the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
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
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
