Hindu minor girl commits suicide after a Muslim man forces her to convert, do Nikah and wear burqa
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
7 January, 2023
Case Summary
In the Madiyanv police station area of North Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a 17-year-old Hindu girl named Sonam committed suicide on January 8, 2023. Her father, Santram Sharma, alleged that one Rafiq Siddiqui used to torture her for conversion and nikah, hence she committed suicide. Rafiq Siddiqui was booked under charges of abetment of suicide. In 2018, the victim's mother Shanti Devi worked for a workshop where she stitched rags into carpets. His daughter Sonam accompanied her mother after school. She was just 13 years old then. The owner of the workshop was Rafiq Siddiqui. Shanti worked there for almost two years and then left the job as Rafiq started stalking Sonam and used to hold her hand in front of Shanti. Rafiq Siddiqui later started to threaten Sonam to convert to Islam and wear a burqa. Fearing his harassment, the girl started walking with her face covered. Rafiq came from a dangerous family and over time, his family members too started pressurising the deceased's family to marry them off. Due to threats of being abducted, converted and married off, the girl took her life by hanging herself.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
In this case, there are two distinct components which prove that the offence was committed coupled with a religious bias. First, the sub-category applicable in the case is 'forced conversion before marriage', under which the two tertiary categories relevant here are 'forced to wear hijab' and 'forced to do Nikah'. 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 ‘Niqah’, 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. The second sub-category befitting this case is 'suicide for being forced to or pressured to convert'. 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 pressuring 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 hate crimes. It is further clear that the perpetrator was trying to win over the trust of the minor victim and using that trust to convert the minor. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
1
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 1
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
