Hindu youth converts to Islam under the influence of his Muslim friend; starts pressurising his family members to embrace Islam

Case ID : e97a2a9 | Location : Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 14 September, 2023

Case ID : e97a2a9

Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, India

14 September, 2023

Hindu youth converts to Islam under the influence of his Muslim friend; starts pressurising his family members to embrace Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Case Summary

A 22-year-old Dalit youth from Chitrakoot district of Uttar Pradesh went to Chennai with a Muslim friend to earn money. When he returned home he had converted to Islam. After coming back, he began pressuring his family members to accept Islam. Following the complaint of the victim's family, the youth's friend Salman was arrested. FIR was lodged in this case on 15 September 2023. Its copy is available with OpIndia. In this, the victim's family has told that Salman Khan converted their son Ranjit to Islam by luring him with money. Since then, Ranjit and Salman's entire family has been pressurizing them for conversion. In fact, when all his efforts to convert his family seemed to fail he once even tried to commit suicide by consuming poison. This case is of Sitapur town of Karvi police station area of Chitrakoot district. An old woman named Keraniya living here has lodged a complaint with the police. In the complaint, the victim accused Salman, son of Ali Waqas, of the conversion of her grandson Ranjit. Salman also lives in the Khohi area of Chitrakoot. Kernia has said that now Salman and Ranjeet together are pressurising the entire family to accept Islam. The victim has also said that Ranjeet and Salman are threatening to kill the entire family if they do not convert. Police registered a case against Salman in this matter under Section 3/5 (1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act.

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 indoctrinated 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. In this case, the Hindu youth, under the influence of his Muslim friend, converted to Islam. Prima facie it appears that the youth converted of his own free will, which is not a crime, however, after converting, he along with his Muslim friend tried to manipulate his family members to convert to Islam. In fact, when his family resented, he tried to emotionally blackmail them by consuming poison. It is therefore observed that the accused attempted to convert his family members through manipulation and blackmailing. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the intention of disenfranchising them from it, the case has been categorised as a hate crime.