Islamists brainwash a hindu youth to convert to Islam, target his entire family for conversion; family says accused converted 400 Hindus and planned to target areas in Rajasthan
Virar, Maharashtra, India 
7 June, 2023
Case Summary
Members of the Jani family in Vasai, Maharashtra, revealed to the media of June 8, 2023, that the head of their family, Rajesh Jani, has been brainwashed and converted to Islam by Islamists. They allege that after Rajesh's conversion, the Islamists are targeting the entire family for conversion. The family accuses local Muslims of pressuring them over phone calls and sending links about Islam. Rajesh's wife stated that they were told Allah would bring them together if they converted. Their daughter mentioned seeing Muslims near their building, seemingly watching them, and revealed that the callers said they had converted 400 Hindus and planned to target areas in Rajasthan. The family remains firm in their Hindu faith and seeks to bring Rajesh back to Hinduism.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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 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 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 particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because there is a distinct component in this case, which essentially involves brainwashing a non-Muslim to abandon his faith and begin practising the alien faith, that demonstrates the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and their deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. In this case, the family of the victim testified that their son was brainwashed and indoctrinated to adopt Islam. To target the victim and his family, the Islamists sent links about Islam, basically to peddle the rhetorics of Islamic supremacy. The fact that the accused had themselves acknowledged that they had already targeted hundreds of Hindus in the vicinity, exhibits the deep disdain the perpetrators harboured for Hinduism and also their blatant desire for the Hindu victim to adopt his professed religion. The case has been classified as a hate crime since the victim's religious beliefs and the desire to strip the Hindus of their religious rights serve as the driving force behind the crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
3
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 3
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 3
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
unknown
Sources 
