Minor Hindu girl abducted and forcibly converted by Muslim man in Raipur
Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India 
30 December, 2024
Case Summary
In the Dharsiwa area of Raipur, Chhattisgarh, a minor Hindu girl was kidnapped and forcibly converted by a Muslim man named Sabir Khan. The 17-year-old Hindu girl was kidnapped by the accused on December 31, 2024 and has been missing since. It has also been reported that he forcibly converted her to Islam and married her. Furthermore, the family of the accused has openly threatened the victim's family, warning them that if they speak too much or complain, their second daughter would also be kidnapped. The Sarpanch of the area was also pressuring the victim's family in favour of the accused, adding to their distress. The family has filed a police complaint, but the police have been unable to rescue the minor girl. Hindu organisations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, stated that this was not an isolated incident but a part of a broader and planned conspiracy to intimidate Hindu families. VHP Raipur District President Bhagwati Sharma stated that despite six months having passed since the minor girl disappeared, neither the girl has been rescued nor has the accused been caught. He expressed concern that the investigation was moving at a sluggish pace. As of the date of writing this report, the Hindu organisations were planning to launch a protest if the minor Hindu girl was not rescued and the accused was not arrested.
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: - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: - Conversion of minor. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The second sub-category selected here 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, the Hindu minor girl was abducted and kept in confinement. This itself is a severe form of intimidation. The purpose behind this was to coerce the victim to abandon her faith and accept Islam. The underlying motivation of predatory proselytisation itself is animosity towards the professed faith of the victim. In this case, there was harassment involved in converting the Hindu girl. Further, the central aim of the perpetrators was to disenfranchise the Hindu girl from her professed faith. Since the central motivation is religion, this case has been added as a hate crime. The details of this case reveal that the Hindu victims were minors, indicating a lack of consent and a genuine change of conscience. It is a well-established fact that children are more susceptible to manipulation since they are still developing emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Their brains are not fully mature, making them more vulnerable to influence and less capable of critically evaluating information. Moreover, subtle manipulation tactics can be difficult to detect, especially when employed by trusted authority figures in positions of influence. This makes it challenging for parents to identify and address instances of religious manipulation. Consequently, cases involving religious manipulation of minors not only represent an infringement on an individual's religious freedom but also demonstrate a calculated strategy of targeting those who are less able to resist or understand the long-term implications of conversion, making it a significant case of religiously motivated hate crime. For this reason, this case has been added to the tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
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 
