Hindu minor girl abducted, gang-raped, and pressured for religious conversion by two Muslim men
Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India 
31 December, 2016
Case Summary
In the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, a Hindu minor girl was abducted, sexually assaulted, and subjected to pressure for religious conversion by two Muslim men, Tanveer and Nazim. The abuse began in 2017, when the girl was still a minor and came into contact with Tanveer, who established a relationship with her by pretending to be Hindu and sexually exploited her over an extended period. According to reports, Tanveer subsequently took her to an advocate, Nazim, who became involved in the matter. The two men pressured her to convert to Islam and planned to send her to Nepal after her marriage. In May 2025, the girl went missing after she did not return home. Haridwar police traced her location using CCTV footage and rescued her from the Haridwar area. According to the prosecution, she had been taken to a guest house near the Hanuman temple in Salempur, where Tanveer and Nazim were to have been involved in her sexual assault. Tanveer, son of Mohammad Anwar, and Nazim, son of Salim Ahmed, were subsequently arrested and booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act. During the investigation, police recovered an Aadhaar card allegedly prepared in the false name of “Bisara”, which was linked to a premeditated plan to facilitate the victim's religious conversion. Forensic examination also found mixed DNA in the victim's vaginal swab matching DNA from the victim and Tanveer's blood sample. Tanveer subsequently sought bail, claiming, among other things, that the victim had not supported the prosecution's statement's during cross-examination, that any relationship between them was consensual, and that no live or dead sperm had been detected in the forensic sample. The State opposed bail, relying on the victim's minor age and the forensic evidence. The Uttarakhand High Court rejected Tanveer's bail application, holding that the absence of sperm did not rule out sexual assault and that the presence of Tanveer's DNA in the victim's vaginal swab provided scientific evidence of physical contact. The Court further held that once the victim's minor age was established, the argument of consensual sexual relations had no legal validity under the POCSO Act. Taking into account the active role played by Tanveer in the physical assault under the guise of religious conversion, the recovery of the Aadhaar card in the false name “Bisara”, and the other material collected during the investigation, the Court observed that the available evidence showed a well-planned attempt at forcible religious conversion under intense pressure and dismissed the bail application.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Predatory proselytisation. Within it, the subcategory selected is: - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. The tertiary category relevant here are: - Conversion of minor, Victim says was brainwashed/groomed and Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 grooming or 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 grooming or 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 indoctrinate 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. The other sub-category relevant 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was systematically groomed, sexually exploited, and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man and his associate. The perpetrators not only engaged in prolonged manipulation and sexual abuse but also gang-raped the girl and exerted pressure on her to convert to Islam. They conspired to smuggle her to Nepal under the guise of marriage, a clear attempt to sever her from her familial, cultural, and religious roots, making the conversion permanent and irreversible. In this case, the perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu girl. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. The deliberate targeting of a Hindu minor highlights a disturbing pattern of predatory proselytisation where emotional manipulation, sexual abuse, and coercion are used as tools for conversion. Here, since the victim was a minor, it essentially means that the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. 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 manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrators purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Such calculated grooming and exploitation serve as tools of subtle indoctrination, where trust is abused and religious identity is dismantled through psychological control. The perpetrators' actions were not only criminal but also communally driven, as the victim's Hindu identity was central to the motive. This aligns squarely with the patterns observed in other cases of religiously motivated hate crimes, where the end goal is to dismantle the cultural and religious continuity of non-Muslim communities through force, manipulation, and deception. Since the religious motive of the crime is evident from these facts, this case has been documented as a hate crime. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began when she met the accused in 2017, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—January 1, 2017—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on May 3, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported. The second primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Man pretends to be Hindu, with the tertiary category being - Name changed. 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.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
