Hindu woman molested, forced to convert to Islam and marry by Muslim co-worker

Case ID : ea34c3b | Location : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 11 May, 2025

Case ID : ea34c3b

Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

11 May, 2025

Hindu woman molested, forced to convert to Islam and marry by Muslim co-worker

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was molested by her 40-year-old Muslim co-worker, Imran Khan. The accused pressured the woman to convert to Islam and marry him. Upon her refusal, he issued abduction threats and made derogatory, anti-Hindu remarks. The Hinduphobia Tracker reached out to the police for details on the case. Authorities confirmed that the victim was a 23-year-old Hindu woman who had been molested and threatened by Imran Khan. However, they denied any communal motive behind the incident. In contrast, several media reports highlighted a clear religious angle. According to these reports, the accused not only molested the woman but also pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. When she refused, he threatened to abduct her and made derogatory remarks about Hindu women. He reportedly claimed that Hindu women suffer, are always under stress, and are forced to work late, while in Islam, women are not allowed to step out at night. Both the accused and the victim were employed at a Domino’s Pizza outlet. On the day of the incident, Imran grabbed the woman’s hand while she was taking an order, molested her, and urged her to convert to Islam and marry him. When she declined, he repeated his derogatory comments about Hindu women and again issued abduction threats. The woman then contacted her fiancé and informed him of the assault. He arrived at the scene along with members of a Hindu organisation. After confronting Imran, they handed him over to the police following a brief altercation. According to Khalsa Times, the police arrested Imran Khan and later sent him to jail.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the two primary categories. One of them is - Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected 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. In this case, there is another relevant primary category selected, which is - Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is - Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. This case qualifies as a hate crime and warrants inclusion in the Hinduphobia Tracker due to the explicit use of coercion, religious pressure, and derogatory remarks rooted in bias against Hindus. exploited his professional proximity to the Hindu victim to gain her trust and then used that access to pressure her into converting to Islam and marrying him. His insistence on religious conversion as a precondition for marriage demonstrates an intent to override the victim’s religious identity, not out of personal compatibility, but as a non-negotiable condition based on religious supremacy. When the victim refused, Imran escalated the situation through physical molestation, threats of abduction, and deeply offensive, anti-Hindu comments. His statements comparing the treatment of women in Hinduism versus Islam were not only factually biased but also intended to demean the victim’s faith and justify his coercive demands. This pattern of targeting a Hindu woman specifically for conversion, using intimidation, harassment, and religious vilification, reflects religiously motivated animus. Such behaviour is not merely a personal crime; it is communal in nature. The insistence on conversion, combined with threats and verbal abuse aimed at her religion, reveals a discriminatory motive rooted in hostility toward the Hindu faith. This case is not an isolated incident of harassment but a deliberate attempt to erase or subordinate the victim’s religious identity. It is this communal and ideological component, where religion becomes both the motive and the means of the abuse, that classifies this as a hate crime and justifies its inclusion in the Hinduphobia Tracker.