Hindu woman pressured, physically assaulted and sexually harassed by two Muslim men for religious conversion and nikah

Case ID : ea34d6d | Location : Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 22 May, 2025

Case ID : ea34d6d

Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India

22 May, 2025

Hindu woman pressured, physically assaulted and sexually harassed by two Muslim men for religious conversion and nikah

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was sexually harassed and coerced into religious conversion and nikah by two Muslim men, both of whom were her colleagues. According to the victim, she works as an outsourced employee in the 108-ambulance service at the district hospital and is originally from a village in the Madrak area. The harassment began when a male co-worker misbehaved with her during duty hours, sexually harassing her and pressuring her to convert to Islam and marry him. When she approached the program manager at Mohanlal Hospital to report the incident, instead of supporting her, he subjected her to further abuse. The program manager also insulted her, pressured her to accept Islam, and told her to marry the accused within two days. When she resisted, they physically assaulted her, verbally abused her and tore her clothes. The woman then filed a police complaint. As of the date of writing this report, both the accused were arrested, and the investigation was ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: -Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was harassed and coerced into religious conversion by her Muslim colleague. She was also pressured by the program manager, who, instead of addressing her complaint, supported the perpetrator and insisted she convert to Islam and marry her colleague. When she refused, she was sexually molested and physically assaulted with her clothes torn apart, all a pressure tactic and a tool to intimidate her into religious conversion. The program manager's response in supporting the accused instead of the victim exemplifies this phenomenon. This not only shows the misuse of power but also shows his religious animosity and hatred towards the Hindu faith. When she resisted, they resorted to physical assault, further portraying the efforts they were willing to take just to convert a Hindu woman. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was violence involved in the pressure exerted to forcefully convert the Hindu woman. Further, the central aim of the perpetrators was to disenfranchise the Hindu woman from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime.