Hindu student of Indore drinks poison and commits suicide after Muslim youth and his family pressurises her to convert to Islam and marry him
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
17 April, 2023
Case Summary
In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu girl, troubled by the pressure and threats of marriage by a Muslim youth, committed suicide. The incident took place on April 18, 2023. Accused Asad Hussain, a resident of the Qazi Palasia area, and the 18-year-old deceased Jaya Sharma studied in the same school. A friendship developed between the two. After a few days, Asad talked about marrying the student. The student refused the marriage citing different religions and started maintaining distance. While going to her college, Asad started stalking and harassing her. He kept pressuring the student to convert to Islam and do Nikah. Fed up with this, the student stopped going to college. The student told her family about Asad, but they kept shut due to fear of defamation. Asad started blocking the victim's father's path to threaten him. The student's father informed Asad's father Shabbir and brother Haider about this, but they were in on it. Asad sent messages to the student's uncle's phone, writing that if he was not married to the girl, he would commit suicide and falsely accuse the girl and her family. After reading this, the student went to her room and consumed some poisonous substance. She could not be saved. State police arrested Asad or Asmat, his father Shabbir Ali and his brother Haider Ali. The police are still looking for his mother, Shahjahan who is absconding.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case qualifies as a hate crime motivated by religion since the Hindu victim committed suicide because she could no longer stand the harassment and coercion from the Muslim perpetrator to convert to Islam. When Hindu women are in a relationship with a non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity 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. In some of these cases, unable to bear the pressure/threat/violence being mounted by the non-Hindu partner to convert, the Hindu woman commits suicide. In such cases, often, threats are also given to the family members of the Hindu woman. Since such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim, leading to the woman committing suicide, these cases are categorized as a hate crime. The second component in this case which makes it worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the Muslim perpetrator kept forcing the Hindu victim to convert to Islam and perform Nikah with him for which conversion of one religion to Islam is a pre-requisite. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. The relationship in such cases is mostly consensual and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. In such cases, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. There is a third thread of hate crime in the case. The perpetrator and his family was torturing and threatening the family of the victim to force the victim to convert to Islam and do Nikah. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is forced to convert her religion. Several methods are used for such forced conversion. The non-Hindu man is often documented to issue threats and even employ violence. One of the ways used by such perpetrators is threatening and/or torturing the family members of the Hindu woman to pressure her to convert. The perpetrators in such cases issue threats to harm or torture the family of the woman. In some cases, there is also violence directed towards the family to force the Hindu woman to convert. Such crimes aim to blackmail the victim into changing her religion by inducing fear of harm to her family. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
1
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
