Minor Hindu girl deceived by illegal Bangladeshi Muslim posing as Hindu; exploited, raped, and nearly sold off

Case ID : f6649dc | Location : Dinhata, West Bengal, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 31 December, 2016

Case ID : f6649dc

Dinhata, West Bengal, India

31 December, 2016

Minor Hindu girl deceived by illegal Bangladeshi Muslim posing as Hindu; exploited, raped, and nearly sold off

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

A minor Hindu girl from West Bengal was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man named Aamir Sohail, an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant who lived in India while posing as a Hindu. Sohail entered India illegally in 2017 and assumed a false Hindu identity. He established a relationship with the minor Hindu girl and later eloped with her to the Dinhata area of Cooch Behar district. While in Dinhata, Sohail kept the girl in a secret tent and raped her on multiple occasions. The girl overheard Sohail making phone calls at various locations, indicating his intent to sell her. She managed to contact her family, who promptly lodged a written complaint with the authorities. A case was registered against Sohail under the POCSO Act and laws pertaining to illegal entry. The police recovered the girl and arrested Sohail, who was then presented before the POCSO court in Jalpaiguri. During the trial, the public prosecutor, Debashish Dutta, reported that Sohail had hidden his true identity, posed as a Hindu, and deceived the minor into a relationship. Ten witnesses testified during the proceedings. After considering the statements from both sides, Judge Rintu Sur of the Jalpaiguri POCSO court found Sohail guilty and sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the category- Crime against Women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by malafide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. The other sub-category selected is - Brainwashed and/or Groomed. Within it the tertiary category selected is - Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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. This incident qualifies as a hate crime due to the clear presence of religiously motivated targeting, deception, and abuse. The perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu minor girl. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. It is important to note that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent was entirely absent from the beginning. Due to their young age and lack of maturity, minors are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They often cannot fully comprehend the implications of the situations they are placed in. In this case, the Muslim perpetrator deliberately exploited the victim’s vulnerability by deceiving her with a false Hindu identity and coercing her into a relationship that involved sexual abuse. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation by the Muslim perpetrator, who concealed his true identity and posed as a Hindu to deceive the minor victim, it constitutes a serious act of targeted exploitation. For this reason, it has been documented here in the hate tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports state that the victim's ordeal began when she met the accused in 2017, though no exact date is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—January 1, 2017—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.