Hindu girl blackmailed, sexually exploited and coerced into religious conversion by Muslim man

Case ID : 30a776b | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 14 October, 2025

Case ID : 30a776b

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

14 October, 2025

Hindu girl blackmailed, sexually exploited and coerced into religious conversion by Muslim man

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Forced conversion before marriage

Blackmailed to convert

Case Summary

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu girl was sexually exploited, blackmailed, and coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man named Mohammad Faraz. According to reports, the accused was a public service centre operator in the Mahigawan area of Lucknow. The victim and the accused had known each other since their school days, following which the accused lured the victim into a relationship under the pretext of marriage. Subsequently, on 15 October 2025, Faraz took her to a hotel on 60 Feet Road in the Jankipuram area, where he administered intoxicants to her and raped her. He recorded the act and subsequently used the video to blackmail her, repeatedly subjecting her to sexual exploitation. He forced her to maintain physical relations with his friends and brother under threat of making the obscene videos public. Faraz also pressured her to convert to Islam, declaring that he would only marry her if she changed her religion. The abuse continued over several months, during which he also threatened to kill her if she approached the police. On 22 March 2026, the situation escalated after the accused sent her explicit videos to her father and acquaintances, further intensifying the mental trauma. Fed up with the ordeal she approached the police and filed a complaint. Following the complaint, an FIR was registered at Jankipuram Police Station, and the accused was arrested near Salim Tiraha. Police initiated further investigation to identify and apprehend other individuals involved in the crime.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category here is - Brainwashed and/ro groomed, with the tertiary category being - 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’ 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 are crimes, for 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 hate crimes. The other sub-category selected is - Forced conversion before marriage. 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 marries a man who pretends to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert to his religion and give up her religious identity. In both 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 pressurising 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. Another sub-category for this case - Blackmail to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was sexually exploited, blackmailed, and coerced into religious conversion by the Muslim accused, named Mohammad Faraz. Firstly, the Muslim accused lured her into a relationship under the pretext of marriage and took her to a hotel where he drugged her, raped her and discreetly recorded obscene videos of her. Furthermore, using these videos, he blackmailed her for further sexual exploitation and forced her to maintain physical relations with his friends. These exploitations were not random acts of crime; rather, they functioned as religiously motivated tools aimed at humiliating and dominating a Hindu girl because of her faith, as he later pressured her to convert to Islam. 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 Secondly, in Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which was why she was pressured for religious conversion. This shows that the Muslim perpetrator specifically targeted the Hindu victim for sexual exploitation and religious conversion. Often in such cases, sexual violence or blackmail serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Thirdly, the accused attempted to force the Hindu victim to renounce her religion and convert to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another was a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. 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. The earliest date mentioned is 15 October 2025, when the accused took her to a hotel and raper her. Since Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began and not when it was reported, we have considered the date of the incident as 15 October 2025, though the media reported the incident on 27 March 2026.