Hindu minor girl lured and sexually exploited by Muslim man, who pretended to be Hindu; targeted multiple girls through deception

Case ID : 30a7704 | Location : Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 26 October, 2025

Case ID : 30a7704

Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

26 October, 2025

Hindu minor girl lured and sexually exploited by Muslim man, who pretended to be Hindu; targeted multiple girls through deception

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Sector-24 of Gandhinagar, Gujarat, a 17-year-old Hindu minor girl was lured and sexually exploited by a 21-year-old Muslim man named Altaf Valibhai Khan Luhar, who pretended to be Hindu. According to reports, the accused, Altaf Valibhai Khan Luhar, first established contact with the victim through Instagram, where he pretended to be a Hindu man named Sahil Desai. Through this false Hindu identity, he gradually gained her trust and lured her into a relationship. Subsequently, he manipulated the minor emotionally and subjected her to repeated sexual exploitation. When the victim’s family became aware of the situation about 6 months ago, they warned the accused to stay away from the victim; however, the accused persisted and later reached her residence when she was alone. Following information from local residents, members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal intervened, apprehended the accused at the location, and handed him over to the police. A search of his mobile phone reportedly revealed objectionable photos and videos of the minor victim, further aggravating the case. The police subsequently registered an FIR under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and initiated further investigation. Preliminary findings also revealed that the accused had been operating multiple social media accounts using Hindu identities and may have been in contact with other girls, prompting a wider probe into his activities. The incident led to public outrage in the locality, with local groups demanding strict action and a comprehensive investigation into the pattern of such offences.

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 Hindu girl was lured and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Altaf Valibhai Khan Luhar, 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 getting into a relationship, consenting to sex or recognising such targeted deception. Additionally, any supposed consent given for a relationship is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. The case also involved elements of coercion and blackmail, which significantly aggravated the severity of the crime. After gaining the victim’s trust, the accused obtained objectionable photos and videos of the minor, as confirmed during the recovery of material from his mobile phone. Such content created a mechanism for sustained control, as victims in such situations are often subjected to threats of exposure, intimidation, and continued exploitation. The target was not the victim as an individual, but her Hindu identity. The specific focus on her Hindu identity in the commission of these acts highlights the religious hatred underlying the crime, making it a religiously motivated offence. Furthermore, the investigation revealed that the accused had been operating multiple accounts on Instagram using Hindu identities, through which he was in contact with other girls. This pattern of maintaining several deceptive profiles demonstrates that this was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of targeting and exploiting Hindu girls. The repeated use of identity concealment specifically to approach Hindu victims demonstrates that such actions were not merely opportunistic but were rooted in religious animosity. 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: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that the victim's family came to know about the accused 6 months ago. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 27 October 2025, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 27 March 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.