Hindu woman groomed and married to Muslim youth under false Hindu identity; forced to eat beef, wear burqa and offer Namaz after marriage
Sahibganj, Jharkhand, India 
18 March, 2026
Case Summary
A Hindu woman from Rajmahal, Sahibganj district, Jharkhand, was groomed and deceived into marriage by a Muslim youth named Shahid Anwar from Sahibganj, who concealed his Muslim identity to trap her. Thereafter, he married her as per Hindu traditions. Subsequently, he pressured her to abandon her Hindu faith, eat beef, wear a burqa, and offer Namaz. When she refused, she was subjected to sustained mental torture. According to reports, Shahid Anwar concealed his Muslim identity and introduced himself to the Hindu woman as Tony, presenting himself as a Hindu man to gain her trust and draw her into a relationship. The victim's family objected to the relationship from the outset and filed a written complaint with the police. Despite the family's objections, he continued to cultivate the Hindu woman's trust and eventually took her to Delhi, where he married her at an Arya Samaj temple following Hindu religious rituals. After returning from Delhi, when it came to light that a case had been registered against him, Shahid Anwar's true identity was revealed. The Hindu woman initially expressed willingness to remain with him in court, which prevented police from taking action at that stage. Six months after the marriage, Shahid Anwar's conduct changed entirely. He pressured the Hindu woman to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam, forced her to eat beef in direct violation of her Hindu religious beliefs and dietary practices, compelled her to wear a burqa, and forced her to offer Namaz. When the Hindu woman refused to comply with these demands, she was subjected to sustained mental torture. The Hindu woman eventually escaped from Shahid Anwar's custody and returned to her family, to whom she disclosed the full details of what had been done to her. The Hindu woman's account led to the registration of a First Information Report at the Rajmahal Police Station. The perpetrator was swiftly arrested and sent to judicial custody. The investigation was ongoing. Social activist Madhavi Lata Mandal strongly condemned the incident and demanded the immediate implementation of an anti-conversion law in Jharkhand similar to those already in force in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand, urging all elected representatives to support the legislation to protect Hindu women from deception and inducement in the future. The article noted the rapidly changing demographic composition of Sahibganj district, attributed in part to illegal infiltration from Bangladesh, and highlighted a documented pattern of similar cases in the Rajmahal and Udhwa areas in which Hindu and tribal women had been targeted through identical methods of identity concealment and deceptive marriage.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationship and other sexual crimes". The sub-category for this case is "Man pretends to be Hindu". The tertiary categories are "Name changed" and "Marries as per Hindu rituals". 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. Another sub-category for this case is "Brainwashed and/or groomed". 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. One other subcategory that this case qualifies for is "Forced conversion after marriage". The tertiary categories here are "Forced to eat beef", "Forced to wear hijab", "Forced to go to mosque". In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to any Abrahamic faith, like Islam, begins after marriage. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert her religion after marriage. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man, pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. Another sub-category for this case is "Assault or threat upon refusal to convert". When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. This case qualified as a hate crime on the basis that the perpetrator, Shahid Anwar, carried out a deliberate and premeditated campaign of religious deception, psychological grooming, and sustained coercion against the Hindu victim, using a false Hindu identity to gain her trust, exploiting the sanctity of Hindu marriage rites to deepen her commitment, and subsequently subjecting her to forced conversion pressure and mental torture when she refused to abandon her Hindu faith. The perpetrator's assumption of the false Hindu identity constituted the foundational act of religious deception upon which the entire campaign was built. In Hindu society, a woman's willingness to enter into a relationship and marriage is profoundly shaped by her partner's religious identity. By presenting himself as a Hindu man, the perpetrator deliberately bypassed the victim's faith-based boundaries, a deception so sustained and effective that the victim remained committed to the relationship despite her own family's explicit objections and their written complaint to police. The systematic grooming carried out over an extended period created a state of complete emotional dependency in the victim, rendering her willing to travel to Delhi and marry the perpetrator against her family's wishes. The conduct of the marriage at an Arya Samaj temple through Hindu religious rituals deepened this deception further, exploiting the sanctity of one of Hinduism's most sacred institutions to consolidate the victim's trust and commitment at the precise moment when escape was still possible. After the marriage, the perpetrator's true intentions were revealed. He forced the victim to eat beef in direct violation of her Hindu dietary practices, compelled her to wear a burqa, and forced her to offer Namaz. Forcing a Hindu to consume beef is not only a profound disrespect to their religious beliefs but also constitutes a religiously motivated hate crime. In Hinduism, cows are revered as sacred animals, symbolising life and sustenance, and the act of consuming beef is considered highly sacrilegious by many Hindus. Therefore, compelling a Hindu to eat beef goes beyond mere dietary imposition; it is an intentional violation of their religious principles and an assault on their cultural and spiritual identity. Further, the victim was also forced to follow other Islamic practices like wearing a burqa and offering namaz. In the broader context of hate crimes, forcing someone to engage in behaviour that is expressly forbidden or offensive in their religion is a clear manifestation of religious intolerance. It demonstrates a blatant disregard for the victim's rights to practice their faith freely. Here, the actions of the perpetrator clearly point towards the deep disdain he harboured for Hindus and their religious beliefs. It is evident that the perpetrator targeted the victim because of her religious identity and that his motivation was driven by religious hate. Further, when the victim refused to comply, the perpetrator subjected her to sustained mental torture until she was able to escape and return to her family. The broader context confirmed that the perpetrator's conduct was part of a documented pattern of identical cases in the Rajmahal and Udhwa areas of Sahibganj district, where Hindu women were targeted through the same methods of identity concealment, deceptive marriage, and forced conversion. This pattern, occurring in a district whose demographic composition was noted to be rapidly changing, reflected not merely individual criminal conduct but an organised and deliberate campaign directed specifically at Hindu women in the region. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when a crime occurred, or a victim's ordeal began, rather than when the media reported it. In this case, the exact date on which Shahid Anwar began grooming the Hindu victim under his false Hindu identity of Tony is not confirmed in the sources. The article was published on March 19, 2026. Therefore, March 19, 2026, has been chosen as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes. It is important to note that the victim's ordeal began significantly earlier than this date, given the extended period of grooming that preceded the marriage, the marriage itself in Delhi, and the six months of forced conversion pressure and mental torture that followed before the victim was able to escape and return to her family. This was recorded for documentation purposes only.
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 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
