In one of our previous reports, we provided a detailed account of a case involving a large-scale sexual exploitation scandal in India, in which Muslim gangs reportedly victimized approximately 250 female students between the ages of 11 and 20 through blackmail and assault.
The incidents, which unfolded over several years and ended in 1992, were orchestrated by men from a prominent, politically well-connected Muslim family. Hindu girls were reportedly lured to secluded locations, where they were assaulted and forced into silence through blackmail. Some of the affected individuals tragically took their own lives.
Decades later, concerns about crimes against Hindu minors by Muslims persist in India. On Monday, February 17, local police in Bewar district, Rajasthan, uncovered a case involving a group of Muslims involved in the sexual exploitation and blackmail of minors. Investigations revealed that a group of Muslim youth working as laborers targeted school-age girls, assaulting and blackmailing them. They trapped one girl and then forced her to introduce other girls to the group, leading to a systematic entrapment of multiple minors. The group members gave these young girls mobile phones in order to lure them into a friendship, subsequently engaging in inappropriate communications through chats before escalating to more severe forms of exploitation. If any girl attempted to break free, they were reportedly blackmailed into compliance.
The victims also allege that these miscreants took compromising photos and videos of the victims, which were then used as leverage to maintain control over them. Some victims have also stated that they were pressured to recite kalma (Islamic professions of faith), keep rozas (the Islamic religious fasts), and adopt Islam. The local police have also corroborated the claims of rape and attempts of forced religious conversions.
Following complaints from the families of five victims, three FIRs were registered at the Vijay Nagar police station under relevant legal provisions, including those related to sexual exploitation, rape, stalking, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Police have detained seven individuals who are identified as Sohail Mansuri (19), Arman Pathan (19), Sahil Qureshi (19), Rihan Mohammad (20), Shoaib (20), and two juveniles whose identities have not been disclosed.
Cases of crimes against Hindu minors by Muslims are not limited to Rajasthan. Similar incidents have been reported in other states, underscoring the threat cast by religious fanatics on Hindu girls throughout the country.
On January 8, a woman in Surayawa, Uttar Pradesh, filed an FIR against a 25-year-old individual named Samjad, a mason, for allegedly abducting her 15-year-old daughter. Upon investigation, the police tracked the accused to Murshidabad, West Bengal. Working with local authorities, the police conducted a raid, rescued the girl, and arrested the suspect. The victim has also accused him of sexual assault. Investigations have revealed that Samjad’s father, Abdul Qasim, was also involved in the abduction. Both were brought back to Uttar Pradesh, and the girl was reunited with her family. Officials have conducted medical examinations and recorded the victim’s statement, with additional charges being considered under the POCSO Act.
Murshidabad, where the arrest took place, is a Muslim-majority area that has been a challenging area for law enforcement in the past. On April 10, 2021, Bihar Police Inspector Ashwini Kumar, then the station in charge of Kishanganj police station, led a raid in the Panjipoda police station area of West Bengal. During the operation, an enraged Muslim mob surrounded and brutally attacked him, and ultimately lynched him to death.
Concerns about Muslim crimes against minors are not limited to lower socioeconomic groups. Even professionals in respected fields have been implicated in serious offenses. In a recent case from the Matigara area in Darjeeling, West Bengal, a dentist named Minnat Hossain was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl. According to reports, the dentist approached the child when she was alone on the afternoon of February 15, initiated a conversation, and convinced her to visit his clinic under the pretext of cleaning her teeth. Once inside, he is said to have sexually assaulted her. The minor managed to escape and informed her parents about the incident. Her mother subsequently registered a complaint with the local police, leading to Hossain’s arrest; investigations into the incident are underway.
Residents in some areas have revealed their worries about an increase in anti-Hindu crimes, citing murders, theft, and instances of Love Jihad on Hindu girls, which have become frequent since large numbers of people of a “certain community” from Bihar have started to immigrate to the Matigara and its environs.
Content warning: This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Five years ago, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of poor wage labourers from one of India’s most marginalized communities, was allegedly sexually abused by one of her neighbours in the village where she lived.
Her alleged abuser filmed it and police are investigating whether he used the images to blackmail and manipulate the girl into being raped and sexually abused by dozens of other men and boys over the next five years.
Police say the allegations only came to light after the girl, now 18, spoke to a counselor visiting her college in Kerala state and detailed the years of horrific abuse.
A total of 58 men and boys have been arrested and accused of the sexual assault, rape and gang rape of the girl. Another two men wanted in connection with the case have fled the country, Kerala Police Deputy Inspector General Ajeetha Begum told CNN.
Among the accused are her schoolmates, her relatives, her neighbours – men from all corners of her life, ranging from minors to men in their mid-40s, according to case documents reviewed by CNN and interviews with local police.
Charges have not yet been filed and the 58 men remain in detention. None of the accused has spoken publicly about the allegations. Under Indian rape laws, the girl has not been identified.
Violence against women is rampant in India due to entrenched sexism and patriarchy, despite laws being amended to include more severe punishments for abusers.
In August the rape and murder of a trainee medic in the eastern city of Kolkata sparked a nationwide doctors’ strike that brought tens of thousands into the streets to demand change.
The Kerala case has not sparked similar outrage.
Experts and activists say that’s because the victim is from the Dalit community at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, a 3,000-year-old social and religious hierarchy that categorizes people at birth and defines their place in society.
Dalits traditionally carry out occupations viewed as ritually “unclean” by Hindu scripture, such as manual scavenging, waste picking and street sweeping.
They are often banned from visiting temples and forced to live apart from higher-caste communities, often in squalor and farther from access to services.
Despite legislation banning discrimination based on caste, activists say the stigma leaves India’s more than 260 million Dalits vulnerable to abuse and less able to seek redress for crimes committed against them.
“When it’s Dalit women, in general the outrage is less across the country,” said Cynthia Stephen, a Dalit rights activist and social policy researcher.
There is a sense that “this girl is not ‘one of us,’” she said.
Manipulated, kidnapped and abused
The alleged abuse began when the young man from the village molested the girl and took sexually explicit videos and photos, police told CNN.
At least three of her abusers promised to marry her, according to police. One threatened to kill her if she reported the abuse.
Some of the men acted alone, police said. But others are accused of gang rape. “It’s not that all the cases are connected. But in one case, there might be four or five accused,” said Begum, from Kerala Police.
Many of the men contacted the young girl on her father’s phone, through social media apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp, late at night after he went to sleep, police said.
The alleged abuse took place in private and public spaces, in homes and in cars, at bus stops and in fields. Some of the cases allegedly involved men who were strangers, living in towns dozens of miles away.
Some of the cases involve allegations of human trafficking, because the men forced the girl to travel outside her village, police said.
The allegations have sent shock waves through the girl’s village in the green hills of Kerala, where many work as wage labourers in low-paid jobs like construction and farming.
Police say the girl’s parents worked long hours and did not know about the alleged abuse of their daughter.
When the allegations emerged in January, some women in the community were sympathetic toward the accused and angry at the survivor, according to local media outlet The News Minute.
The women criticized the girl’s clothing and lifestyle and blamed her mother for not watching over her more closely, The News Minute reported.
One mother, whose son was among the accused, said he was innocent. She said he had known the girl since she was a baby and “had raised the girl in his arms,” according to the outlet.
‘Monsters in her own backyard’
More than half of Dalits in Kerala live in designated areas called “colonies,” known for cramped and harsh living conditions, after years of being denied land ownership under historical laws.
Many women and girls living in these colonies lack resources and privacy, making them more vulnerable to abuse, Rekha Raj, a Dalit feminist activist from Kerala, told CNN.
Madhumita Pandey, a professor in criminology and gender justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, said the tight-knit nature of communities such as these colonies could explain why the alleged abuse of the teenage girl was not reported until recently.
“They could sometimes be your friend, uncle or neighbour,” she said.
It can be harder to report abuse when “the so-called monsters are in our own backyard,” she said.
Does that mean that Dalit men also take advantage of Dalit girls? It sounds like it to me.
Official statistics support her point: the alleged perpetrator is known to the victim in more than 98 per cent of reported rape cases in Kerala, according to government data.
There were 4,241 reported cases of rape against women from oppressed castes in India, including Dalit women, in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. That’s equivalent to more than 10 rapes per day.
There were more than 31,500 rapes reported overall in 2022, according to the NCRB.
However, given the difficulties in reporting such crimes, especially for the Dalit community, the true figure is likely higher.
The true figure is always higher!
Furthermore, in close communities, and especially in Dalit communities, women and girls also risk isolating themselves or being seen as bringing dishonor upon their families if they report abuse, Pandey said.
In at least 16 of the cases from the alleged Kerala village abuse, the accused men are from more privileged castes, according to police. If found guilty, these men could face harsher punishments under Indian laws designed to protect disadvantaged castes.
A 2020 report by the NGO Equality Now found that sexual violence is used by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls, who are often denied justice because of a “prevalent culture of impunity, particularly when the perpetrators are from a dominant caste.”
Even when Dalit women report sexual abuse, they face an uphill battle to justice.
The Equality Now report followed 40 cases of rape against Dalit women and girls, and the seven cases that resulted in convictions involved either rape and murder together or were committed against girls under the age of 6.
N Rajeev, the head of the Child Welfare Committee in Pathanamthitta, the Kerala district where the girl is from, said an increase in reported child sexual abuse cases was in part thanks to campaigns in schools that help children identify and disclose abuse. The number of reported child sexual abuse cases in the state has surged to 4,663 in 2023, more than four times the 1,002 reported in 2013, according to government data.
The Dalit girl is now living in a shelter where she is receiving counseling and support, Begum, the police officer, said. The girl’s mother is also being given counseling and has the option to stay in a women’s shelter if she feels unsafe in the neighbourhood. Begum said police have dedicated “maximum manpower” to the case.
The case will likely take years to go through the courts.
Across India, rape has one of the lowest conviction rates of major crimes, with 27 per cent of cases resulting in convictions in 2022, according to the NCRB.
While child sexual abuse continues to be a “a grim reality” in Kerala, the fact that the Dalit girl was able to report the case is a step in the right direction, Stephen said.
“Otherwise, this would have just gone on unreported for years on end, then she would have nobody to help her.”
Esha Mitra and Lex Harvey, CNN
Resources for sexual assault survivors in Canada
If you or someone you know is struggling with sexual assault or trauma, the following resources are available to support people in crisis:
If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, you should call 911.
A full list of sexual assault centres in Canada that offer information, advocacy and counselling can be found on the website for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.
Helplines, legal services and locations that offer sexual assault kits in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia can be found here.
National Residential School Crisis Line: +1 866 925 4419
24-hour crisis line: 416 597 8808
Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: +1 833 900 1010
Trans Lifeline: +1 877 330 6366
Sexual misconduct support for current or former members of the Armed Forces: +1 844 750 1648
Read about your rights as a victim here.
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