Minor Hindu girl raped and forced to convert to Islam and perform Nikah; Muslim youth fires bullets outside her residence when she denies

Case Summary
In Himachal Pradesh's Una district, a 16-year-old Hindu girl has accused a Muslim youth named Shahid Khan of harassing her to convert and marry him. The girl, a Class 11 student, also stated that the man threatened to kill her and her parents, and fired gunshots near their house when she refused to accede to his demands. In her complaint, the victim said that the accused, Shahid Khan from Amb, was acquainted with her for the past one and a half years and used to call her repeatedly. She further stated that he recently beat and raped her. Based on her complaint, a case under sections 64(1) (punishment for rape), 115(2) (punishment for causing hurt voluntarily), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 352 (intentional insult with intention to provoke breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act (BNS) and Section-4 (Punishment for penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered in Una women police station.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The case has been added to the tracker as a religiously motivated hate crime under the category of- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the first sub-category selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. Further, the tertiary category chosen within this is- 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 ‘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. The second sub-category selected is- Torture of family to force woman to convert. 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. In this case, there is no specific element of the Muslin accused hiding his identity. The minor victim testified that she and the accused had known each other for the past one and a half years. The accused exploited this familiarity with the victim and began to harass her by making repeated calls. He forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. He physically assaulted her and also threatened to kill her and her family. The details of the case reveal a deliberate targeting of the Hindu minor, with the intent to isolate her from her faith and impose a different religious identity upon her. This manipulation reflects the accused's clear bias against Hinduism. His actions were not just about physical exploitation but were rooted in a desire to strip the victim of her Hindu identity and force her into adopting Islam. Given these elements, the case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime, driven by the accused's animosity towards the Hindu faith.
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