Minor tribal Hindu girl lured and sexually exploited by Muslim man posing as Hindu; multiple Hindu girls targeted and blackmailed
Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh, India 
18 March, 2026
Case Summary
In the Hoshangabad district (now Narmadapuram), Madhya Pradesh, a minor tribal Hindu girl was lured and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Zoef Khan, who pretended to be a Hindu. The accused, Zoef Khan, targeted a minor tribal Hindu girl from Narmadapuram via Instagram by falsely presenting himself as a Hindu youth named Ankit. Through this false Hindu identity, he lured her into a relationship, emotionally manipulated her, and persuaded her to leave her home and travel to Indore. Upon her arrival, he took her to the room of his acquaintance, Abhishek, without the latter’s consent or knowledge. The situation came to light when Abhishek returned on 19 March 2026. Abhishek became suspicious of the situation due to the presence of a girl and signs of unauthorised entry, after which he informed members of a Hindu organisation. Members of Hindu organisations immediately arrived at the spot, apprehended him and handed him over to the police. A search of the accused's mobile phone revealed extensive chats with multiple Hindu girls as well as pornographic videos involving several victims, pointing to a broader and repeated pattern of predatory conduct. During police questioning, the minor victim initially identified him as “Ankit” and expressed shock upon learning his real identity. Investigation revealed that a kidnapping case concerning the minor had already been registered at the Hoshangabad police station. Following coordination between the police in Narmadapuram and Indore, the girl was recovered, and the accused was formally taken into custody. Furthermore, it was revealed that the accused was employed as an order handler at a multinational pizza outlet, where he systematically accessed and misused the personal data of female customers. He extracted phone numbers from food delivery orders, and he initiated unsolicited contact with young women, offering inducements such as free pizzas to establish rapport. After gaining their trust, he developed deceptive relationships with multiple Hindu girls, subjecting them to sexual exploitation and recording their obscene videos, using them for coercion and blackmail.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories selected are- Name changed and Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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. The tertiary category here 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 case has been added to the tracker because a minor tribal Hindu girl was lured and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Zoef Khan, who pretended to be a Hindu. Firstly, the perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu 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. Secondly, it is important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting or getting into a relationship or recognising such targeted deception. Additionally, any supposed consent given for a relationship is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. Furthermore, evidence from the accused’s mobile phone revealed that he had established contact with multiple Hindu girls using similar deceptive methods, indicating that the targeting was not limited to a single victim but part of a repeated and deliberate pattern. He systematically accessed personal data of female customers, after which he built false relationships under fabricated identities for blackmail and sexual exploitation. The recovery of chats and obscene material involving multiple Hindu victims demonstrates that this conduct was organised and sustained over time, rather than incidental. The deliberate selection of Hindu girls, combined with the use of a false Hindu identity to gain their trust, suggests that the actions were not driven solely by sexual intent but were also shaped by a deeper element of religious animosity. The pattern of deception, targeting, and exploitation points towards a conscious effort to exploit religious identity as a tool for manipulation, reinforcing the broader trend of ideologically motivated targeting documented in similar cases. This is not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of religiously motivated hate crimes targeting Hindu women. The Hinduphobia tracker has documented multiple cases where non-Hindu men pretended to be Hindu to befriend Hindu women for sexual exploitation or religious conversion. For example, in Bahadarabad, Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, a Hindu woman was blackmailed and raped by a Muslim man named Iqbal, who had faked a Hindu identity to entrap her. In a similar case, from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Sufian, who impersonated a Hindu man on social media to lure her. In another case in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman, mother of a six-year-old child, was deceived, forcibly converted to Islam, and kept in captivity. The perpetrator, Ehsan Hussain, pretended to be Hindu and trapped her in a fabricated love affair, coerced her into abandoning her faith, renamed her Khushboo Khatun, and forcibly married her before relocating her to Chennai. These incidents collectively highlight a pattern in which Hindu girls are specifically targeted and lured under deliberate identity deception for nefarious purposes, underscoring a systematic hostility towards Hindu individuals and their religious beliefs. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker acknowledges that the available evidence indicates the accused targeted multiple victims through similar methods. However, as only one victim has been specifically identified and substantiated in the present case, the recorded victim count has been maintained as one. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim came into contact with the accused. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident came to light, 19 March 2026.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
