Tanveer Alam rapes minor children of an army officer, forces them to convert to Islam

Case ID : ea7ab8b | Location : Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 18 February, 2023

Case ID : ea7ab8b

Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

18 February, 2023

Tanveer Alam rapes minor children of an army officer, forces them to convert to Islam

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

An army officer posted in the military area of Dehradun, Uttarakhand, accused a Muslim youth named Tanveer Alam of raping his minor daughter, 15, and minor son, 10, and doing obscene acts with his wife. The victim's wife had downloaded a singing app in April 2022. Through this app, the woman was introduced to the accused, a resident of Islam Colony in Chhapra district of Bihar. The army officer said that some time ago he went to Maharashtra to do an army course. In his absence, his woman called Tanveer to the victim's government residence. His children claimed that they saw the accused Tanveer doing obscene acts with their mother many times. Tanveer also raped the army officer's minor daughter and committed unnatural acts with the victim's minor son. Further, the military officer alleged that Tanveer was pressuring his minor children to accept Islam. A case was registered and investigations were being carried out.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the hate tracker under the prime category- Predatory Proselytisation. Under this, 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. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. 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. Here, the Muslim perpetrator is accused of raping an army officer's minor daughter and committing unnatural sex with his minor son. The Muslim accused took advantage of his relationship with the army officer's wife to assault the children. Additionally, as per the army officer's testimony, the accused also pressured his minor children to accept Islam. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the accused employed violence to disenfranchise the victim from it, the case has been included under the sub-category 'harassment, threats, coercion for conversion' within the core category of 'predatory proselytisation'.