Iram Saifi alias Neha befriends widowed Hindu woman, gets her gang-raped and her minor daughter molested by Muslim friends, booked
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
8 June, 2023
Case Summary
In the Baradari area of Bareilly, a widow woman was befriended by a woman named Iram Saifi who posed as Neha, three months ago, leading to frequent visits between their homes. During one visit to Iram's house, the victim was coerced into physical relations with some of Iram's friends, who then blackmailed her with an obscene video. Additionally, Iram's brother, Ballu, allegedly molested the victim's 12-year-old daughter and tried to rape her during his visits to their house. On June 8, 2023, Iram Saifi invited the victim and her minor daughter to her home, where they were pressured by a Maulvi to convert to Islam. When they refused, they were assaulted by the accused. Notably, Iram Saifi initially posed as a Hindu named Neha wearing Hindu attire and had social media posts of Lord Bholenath, Hindu hymns and saints. The victim reported these incidents to the police on June 9, 2023, resulting in a case being registered against Iram Saifi, Ballu Saifi, an unknown Maulvi, and another individual. The police have initiated a search for the accused based on the victim's complaint.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. 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, there is a distinct element of threat, coercion and violence being employed to force the Hindu mother to convert to Islam. The Hindu woman's 12-year-old daughter was molested and also, the victim was assaulted when she refused to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. An important aspect of this case is the Muslim woman pretending to be a Hindu while coercing the Hindu victim to get into a physical relationship with the Muslim man - the Muslim man then molests her minor daughter and then, collectively, the Muslim perpetrators forcefully attempting to convert the victim to Islam. This is an unusual case where it was a Muslim woman friend of the victim who pretended to be a Hindu to trap the Hindu woman, get her physically assaulted and force her to convert to Islam (including the molestation of the victim's minor daughter). For this reason and the case being unusual, it is being categorised as a hate crime not only under predatory proselytisation but also 'hate crimes against women in a relationship'. Usually, it is the spouse pretending to be a Hindu which gets classified under the 'women in relationship' category, however, since there did exist a friendship between the Muslim woman perpetrator and the victim, and the Muslim woman pretending to be a Hindu, it is also being categorised as a hate crime under this category.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Sources 
