Hindu man's father says four Muslim youth brainwashed his son into converting to Islam and joining Tablighi Jamaat, after conversion the son starts threatening to kill his parents for property
Banda, Uttar Pradesh, India 
18 October, 2023
Case Summary
In October 2023, a Brahmin man named Pawan Tiwari filed a police complaint accusing four Muslim youths of brainwashing his son, Rambabu Tiwari, to convert to Islam. He alleged that local Muslim youths namely Chhota Master, Mehboon Khan, Raju Khan and Afzal coaxed him and sent him to Tablighi Jamaat for a few days. After returning, Rambabu Tiwari’s health deteriorated. He stayed at home and started watching Islamic videos on YouTube. He began visiting the mosque and performing Namaz every day and also started identifying himself as Nasir Hussain. On October 13, Rambabu submitted a conversion affidavit in the SDM office and urged that his name should be changed from Rambabu Tiwari to Nasir Hussain in all his legal documents. The father further said that the local Muslim youths had tricked Rambabu into converting his religion as they wanted to acquire his land, which was worth crores. Speaking about the case, VHP district president Chandra Mohan Bedi also said that Tablighi Jamaat lured the youth to convert to Islam by offering him money. In the complaint, Rambabu's parents also said that their son, after converting to Islam, started threatening to kill them for property and money. Based on the complaint, the police arrested Rambabu Tiwari aka Nasir Hussain on charges of threat, intimidation and extortion. The police also arrested the four local youths Chhota Master, Mehboon Khan, Raju Khan and Afzal on the grounds of religious conversion under the UP anti-conversion law and sent them to jail. Rambabu, meanwhile, claimed that he converted to Islam without any pressure.
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. 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 parents of the victim testified that their son was brainwashed and indoctrinated to adopt Islam. The accused were successful in brainwashing the youth to the extent that he not only started practising Islamic principles but also became opposed to his Hindu parents. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victim and the intention of the accused to disenfranchise him from it, the case has been categorised as a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 1
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
