Hindu woman lured, raped, forcibly converted to Islam and married by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh

Case ID : 30a7567 | Location : Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 20 March, 2026

Case ID : 30a7567

Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, India

20 March, 2026

Hindu woman lured, raped, forcibly converted to Islam and married by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

In Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, a Dalit Hindu woman was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man named Ashfaq, son of Hussain Khan, who posed as a Hindu man named Sonu Kahar. The accused raped her under the pretext of marriage, forcibly converted her to Islam, and married her. After marriage, he began severely assaulting and mentally torturing her. The victim, who lived in the Dehat police station area, was previously married and had two children. After her husband's death, she lived alone. During this time, she met the Muslim accused from Chandameta, who pretended to be Sonu Kahar. The meeting gradually blossomed into a friendship, and the accused developed a romantic relationship with the woman. He proposed marriage to her and promised to give his name to her children, which led to the Hindu woman becoming emotionally attached to him. Taking advantage of this trust, the accused deceived the victim and raped her under the pretext of marriage. After some time, the woman became suspicious, and the truth emerged that the accused's real name was not Sonu Kahar, but Ashfaq, and that he was already married and a Muslim man. She also discovered that he had misled her by claiming to be a Hindu. After learning the truth, she tried to distance herself from him and refused to marry him. As a result, the accused threatened to kill her and her children. Ashfaq then pressured and forcibly converted the Hindu victim to Islam, after which he married her. After the marriage, he kept her in a rented house in the Parasia area, where she was subjected to beatings, abuse, and mental torture. Finally, fed up with this torture, the victim went to the Chandameta police station and filed a written complaint against Ashfaq. The police registered a case on the grounds of zero FIR and sent the diary to the Rural Police Station, where a case was registered against the accused under serious sections, including the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act. Following an investigation, the police arrested the accused from the Kukra Jagat area, and further investigation was underway.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being 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 category selected is- Name Changed. 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 subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. 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. The other subcategory selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. The tertiary category selected 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. 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, 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. 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 the situations, 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. In this case, the Hindu widow was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man named Ashfaq, who pretended to be a Hindu named Sonu Kahar. After raping her under the pretext of marriage, he forcibly converted her to Islam. After this, he married her, then subjected her to severe physical assaults and mental torture in a rented house. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu demonstrated clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true Muslim identity as Ashfaq, son of Hussain Khan, he manipulated the Hindu widow's trust after her husband's death, targeting her vulnerability as a lone Hindu woman with two children under false pretences of providing a new family. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent in personal relationships and an assault on her religious boundaries, as he knew she would reject him upon learning his faith. Thus, the deliberate concealment of his religious identity strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment served not just as a deceptive tactic for personal gain but as a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused understood that the victim, being a practising Hindu living alone after widowhood, would refuse his advances if aware of his Muslim background and existing marriage, so he circumvented this by fabricating a Hindu persona. This reflects a broader pattern where Hindu women, especially widows or those in vulnerable positions, are singled out by Muslim men using false Hindu identities, often leading to sexual exploitation, coercion, and conversion attempts. Such targeted victimisation based on religion demonstrates fundamental disregard for Hinduism and exposes deeper animosity towards Hindus and their religious identity, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Secondly, through this deliberate deception, the Hindu widow was sexually exploited and raped by the Muslim perpetrator under the false promise of marriage and paternal care for her children. This was not a random act of assault but a religiously biased violation, where he preyed on her emotional attachment built through months of feigned romance, isolating her further by promising stability only to betray her faith and personhood. The exploitation extended beyond physical violation, as he leveraged her trust as a Hindu woman to dismantle her defences, making the crime a pointed attack driven by her religious identity rather than mere opportunism. Such religiously motivated sexual exploitation of Hindu women showcases the severity to which the perpetrator was ready to harm and violate her for her faith identity, making it a hate crime. Thirdly, after the Hindu widow discovered his true identity and tried to end the relationship, he threatened her life and her children's safety before coercing her into converting to Islam and formalising a forced marriage. This revealed that his initial deception and rape formed part of a premeditated plan towards religious conversion, stripping her of her Hindu identity through relentless pressure and isolation in the Parasia rented house, where severe beatings and mental torture followed to shatter her resistance. Such actions violated her fundamental right to practise her faith freely and embodied deep-seated religious hostility towards Hindus, aiming to obliterate her religious autonomy through forcible assimilation. These acts of deception, rape, forced conversion, and marriage unequivocally constitute a religiously motivated hate crime. Fourthly, the relentless post-marital violence and mental torture inflicted on the Hindu widow in the Parasia rented house starkly reveal that the perpetrator targeted and tormented her precisely for her Hindu identity, cementing this as a hate crime. After forcibly converting her and entering the marriage, he unleashed severe beatings and psychological abuse not as mere domestic discord but as a sustained campaign to eradicate every trace of her Hindu roots and break her spirit through calculated cruelty. This pattern of brutality, far beyond typical marital strife, exposes the perpetrator's deep religious animosity, as he weaponised physical and emotional pain to punish her lingering faith, deriving satisfaction from her suffering as a Hindu woman trapped in his control. Such targeted post-conversion torture demonstrates utter contempt for Hindu dignity and autonomy, transforming the marriage into a vehicle for ongoing religious subjugation and affirming the crime's religiously motivated core. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began rather than when it was reported by the media. In this case, media reports have not specified the exact date the victim's ordeal began. Henceforth, 21 March 2026, the date of media reporting, is recorded as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.