Muslim youth poses as Hindu, visits temples to lure Hindu woman, threatens her to convert to Islam, makes her eat meat

Case ID : e97a560 | Location : Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 21 June, 2023

Case ID : e97a560

Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, India

21 June, 2023

Muslim youth poses as Hindu, visits temples to lure Hindu woman, threatens her to convert to Islam, makes her eat meat

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, a case involving an attempt to convert a Dalit girl to Islam by a man named Farooq has come to light. Farooq, allegedly a follower of Zakir Naik, deceived the victim using the alias Raju and lured her into a relationship. He posed as a Hindu and engaged in religious practices with her, disguising his true identity. After establishing physical relations and revealing his true identity, Farooq held the victim captive for over two months, threatening her and coercing her to convert to Islam. He breached the girl's religious practices by deceitfully feeding her chicken biryani. He also embezzled money from her and threatened to make obscene videos of her public. Farooq used witchcraft, including a vashikaran amulet, on the victim. The victim eventually escaped to her family in Damoh, filing a complaint with the police. The case has been registered under the SC-ST Act and Anti-Conversion Act. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Dr. Narottam Mishra has intervened, and a police team has been dispatched to Bengaluru for investigation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. What gives this case a distinct religious angle is that the Muslim perpetrator actively hid his religion and pretended to be a Hindu to ensnare the Hindu woman. He purposely engaged in Hindu religious practices to deceive the Hindu girl. Further, when his real identity was revealed, he inflicted torture and threatened the Hindu victim to convert to Islam. He also breached the girl's religious practices by deceitfully feeding her meat. Since the religious motive of the crime is evident from these facts, this case has been documented as a hate crime.