Hindu college girls targeted by Muslim youths masquerading as Hindus; sexually assaulted on knife point, forced to eat meat, blackmailed to convert
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India 
17 April, 2025
Case Summary
In Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, three Hindu college girls were assaulted and forced to convert by a group of Muslim youths using Hindu identities. According to the victims, the accused, Farhan Khan, Sahil Khan, and Ali Khan, all MBA students, befriended the girls under assumed Hindu names. After gaining their trust, the men got into physical relationships with the girls. They created obscene videos and began blackmailing the girls for money while pressuring them to convert to Islam in the name of marriage. As per reports, police found that the members of the Muslim gang forced the victims to smoke ganja (marijuana), showed them porn and raped them at knife point. An FIR was filed by the police on April 18, 2025, and eight accused, including the main accused Farhan Khan, were arrested. The remaining accused were Mohammad Saad, Arbaaz, Ayan, Shahrukh, Javed alias Bhaiyyu, Zoya, and Faizan. The police are looking for Mohammad Ali, Abrar Khan, Hamid, Arshad and Siraj, whose names have surfaced in the case. Two of the victims are real sisters. The sisters told the police that they were pursuing B.Tech. at the same college as Farhan, and they met him through a friend. He reportedly concealed his Muslim identity and assumed a false Hindu identity. One day, Farhan took them to Hamid’s house where he raped one of them and recorded her obscene video. When she resisted, she was threatened and fed non-vegetarian food. Farhan also forced her to convert and marry him. The other sister said that Farhan introduced her to Ali, who took her to his house and misbehaved with her. When she resisted, he raped her and discreetly recorded her obscene video. She said that Ali shared her obscene video with Farhan, who started blackmailing her. Farhan forced her to have sexual relations with his friends. When she refused, Farhan invited her to Abrar’s house on the pretext of talking. There he drugged her and raped her. Another victim also revealed some details of abuse. She, who is from Indore, told the police that she came to Bhopal to study. She met Farhan in the first year of college and became friends with him. One day, he took the 23-year-old victim to a hotel and raped her. He recorded her obscene video and raped her on multiple occasion by blackmailing to use the video. The victim said that when she resisted Farhan's attempt to rape her, he put a knife on her throat and threatened to kill her. Farhan forced her to introduce him to her friends. Fearing that he would leak her videos, the victim obliged and introduced a friend to Farhan’s friend, Sahil. Sahil then, raped the victim’s friend. Similarly, Ali also raped another friend of the victim in a hotel in Ashoka Garden and recorded her videos. The victim further accused Farhan of extorting money from her. She was forced to watch porn. If she did not obey, Farhan used to beat her in his car. He kept a knife, using which he used to threaten to kill her. She, too, was pressured to convert to Islam and marry. Another victim of the Muslim gang named Shahrukh, Ayana and Zoya in her statement. As per reports, the victim stated that Shahrukh of Bairagarh, Bhopal, lured her into a relationship and raped her. He later forced her minor friend to befriend his friend Ayan. After becoming friends, Ayan raped the minor. He also recorded a video of it. Shahrukh used the videos to blackmail the victim and forced her to meet his friend Arbaaz who also raped her. All three accused were MBA students of the same college where the victims were doing their graduation. In the investigation, the police found pictures of many other girls on Farhan’s mobile. Police said that all three accused were not from Madhya Pradesh. Two of them were from Bengal. The case was registered under rape, POCSO Act and Religious Freedom Act. Further, an SIT was formed for an impartial investigation. A similar pattern of exploitation targeting young girls has been observed before, notably in the 1992 Ajmer case and again in Beawar earlier in February 2025. In Bhopal too, Hindu girls were specifically targeted by Muslim youths who lured them under false pretences, engaged in lewd behaviour, and later intimidated them with threats to leak compromising videos.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case is categorised under the primary category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under that, the relevant sub-category is- Man pretends to be Hindu, and within it, the tertiary categories selected are- Name Changed and Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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. The other sub-category selected is- Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other sub-category selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed, and within it, the tertiary categories selected are- Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed, Pattern of targeting Hindu minors, Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Pattern of targeting Hindu minors and Conversion of minor. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. The second category selected here is- Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the sub-category selected here is- Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. 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. 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. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered hate crimes. The case in Bhopal constitutes a hate crime due to the clear pattern of targeting, luring, and sexual assault of three Hindu women by a group of Muslim men who deliberately concealed their religious identities. The accused befriended the victims under false Hindu names, established trust, and then exploited that trust to initiate sexual relationships with them. The accused recorded obscene videos and used them to blackmail the victims, forcing them to introduce more Hindu girls to the group, thereby perpetuating a cycle of abuse specifically aimed at Hindu women. A distinct religious motive is evident as the perpetrators did not merely exploit the victims sexually, but also coerced and blackmailed them to convert to Islam. The blackmail involved threats to release intimate videos and persistent demands for conversion, often under the pretext of marriage. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, the pressure to change religious identity, coupled with threats and violence upon refusal, demonstrates that the crime was not only sexual in nature but also religiously motivated, targeting the victims for their Hindu identity and seeking to forcibly alter it. The gravity of the crime is further heightened by the fact that one of the victims was a minor at the time of the assault, indicating a lack of consent and a genuine change of conscience. It is a well-established fact that children are more susceptible to manipulation since they are still developing emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Their brains are not fully mature, making them more vulnerable to influence and less capable of critically evaluating information. Moreover, subtle manipulation tactics can be difficult to detect, especially when employed by trusted authority figures in positions of influence. This makes it challenging for parents to identify and address instances of religious manipulation. Consequently, cases involving religious manipulation of minors not only represent an infringement on an individual's religious freedom but also demonstrate a calculated strategy of targeting those who are less able to resist or understand the long-term implications of conversion, making it a significant case of religious-motivated hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
3
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 3
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 3
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 10 to 100
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
