Muslim colleagues brainwash two Hindu woman into converting to Islam. One victim confesses that she got so radicalised that she started hating Hindu gods, considering her own parents as "Kafirs"
Ernakulam, Kerala, India 
9 May, 2023
Case Summary
Two women Anagha Jaigopal and Vishali Shetty faced attempts at conversion to Islam and shared their stories. Anagha Jaigopal of Ernakulam in Kerala recounted her journey started in 2013, stating that she fell victim to what she terms as "intellectual jihad" by her colleagues and classmates. Over the course of five to six years of Islamic study, she not only became anti-Hindu but also anti-national and anti-human. She expressed disdain for her Hindu upbringing, hating Hindu gods and culture, and even considering her own parents as "Kafirs" (non-believers). Her colleagues shared Quran translations and videos of MM Akbar and Zakir Naik. She started practising Islam and wearing a hijab. Vishali Shetty shared a similar experience, detailing her radicalisation during her time working in an IT company in Bengaluru. She stated that her colleagues exploited her lack of answers to their questions about her Hindu faith, creating confusion in her mind. Eventually, she found herself being influenced by Islamic ideologies. Both women credited the intervention of organisations like Arsh Vidya Samajam for helping them rediscover their Hindu roots and guiding them away from radicalisation. Anagha met Acharya Shri Manoj at Arsh Vidya Samajam, had a heated debate with him and eventually realised how the facts in Quran and Hadis are dangerous and the path of Islam was filled with risk. Vishali Shetty asserted that the depicted scenarios in Sudipto Sen’s film 'The Kerala Story' are not confined to Kerala but are reflective of a broader issue present in various regions globally.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
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 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 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. This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because there is a distinct component in this case, which essentially involves brainwashing a non-Muslim to abandon his faith and begin practising the alien faith, that demonstrates the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and their deliberate attempt to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. In this case, the victims testified that they were brainwashed and indoctrinated to adopt Islam. The accused were successful in brainwashing the women to the extent that they not only started practising Islamic principles but also became opposed to their Hindu parents. They started hating their own faith and all those who professed Hinduism. Since the motivating factor of the crime was the religious identity of the victims and the intention of the accused to disenfranchise the women from it, the case has been categorised as a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
unknown
Sources 
