Hindu woman in Solapur district, Maharashtra deceived into a relationship by a married Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : 30a77eb | Location : Solapur, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 9 September, 2025

Case ID : 30a77eb

Solapur, Maharashtra, India

9 September, 2025

Hindu woman in Solapur district, Maharashtra deceived into a relationship by a married Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

A 25-year-old Hindu woman from Natepute village, Solapur district, Maharashtra, who had moved to Pune for work, was deceived into a relationship and nearly married by a Muslim man named Iqbal Sheikh, who concealed his Muslim identity, assumed the false Hindu name, Daksh Keshav Vaidya. The accused created fake Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number cards bearing the false Hindu name to support the deception. The conspiracy was exposed before the marriage could take place when an anonymous woman called the Hindu woman's mother and exposed the accused Muslim man, who was already married and had two children. He was arrested on March 11, 2026 and sent to police custody by the Malshiras court. He first made contact with the Hindu woman in September 2025 at a private company in Pune where she worked, introducing himself as Daksh Keshav Vaidya and presenting himself as Hindu. He had created fake Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number cards bearing a false Hindu name to lend credibility to his false identity. Over the following months, the friendship developed into a romantic relationship during which he maintained contact not only with the Hindu woman but also with her parents and relatives, providing false information about himself throughout. He told the Hindu woman and her family that his parents had died during the Covid-19 pandemic, that his brother worked in Mumbai, that he owned six acres of irrigated farmland in his village, and that he had his own home, fabricating an entire false life history to strengthen the deception. He pressed the Hindu woman for marriage and formally approached her family for her hand in marriage, after which the family began preparations for the wedding. An anonymous woman repeatedly called the Hindu woman's mother, warning that the accused was Muslim rather than Hindu and that he was already married to a woman with two children from his first wife, who herself was from an interfaith marriage. The family grew suspicious, and the Hindu woman's uncle travelled to Umbre village to make inquiries with the local police patil and villagers, who confirmed that no family by the name of Daksh Keshav Vaidya existed in the village and that the documents were fake. The family subsequently contacted the Natepute police station and reported the matter. Assistant Police Inspector Vishal Waykar conducted a thorough investigation and established his true identity. Police took him into custody on March 10, 2026 and produced him before the Malshiras court on March 11, 2026, where the court remanded him to police custody.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The sub-category here is "Man pretends to be Hindu". The tertiary category here 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. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime on the basis that Iqbal Sheikh, a Muslim man, deliberately concealed his Muslim identity, assumed the false Hindu name Daksh Keshav Vaidya, and created fake Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number cards bearing that false Hindu name to deceive a 25-year-old Hindu woman from Natepute village into a relationship and bring her to the brink of marriage. The depth and organisation of the deception, involving forged identity documents, a fabricated life history, and sustained contact with the Hindu woman's entire family over several months, confirmed the premeditated and calculated nature of the predatory operation directed at her. The deliberate assumption of the false Hindu name Daksh Keshav Vaidya was the foundational act of the entire predatory operation. In Hindu society, a woman's willingness to enter into a relationship and ultimately a marriage with a man is profoundly shaped by his religious identity. By presenting himself as a Hindu man through a carefully chosen Hindu name and forged government identity documents, he consciously and deliberately bypassed the Hindu woman's faith-based boundaries, creating a false sense of shared identity and trust that she and her family would never have extended to him had they known his true Muslim identity. The creation of fake Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number cards bearing the false Hindu name reflected a level of premeditation that went far beyond a casual deception. These are official government identity documents whose forgery requires deliberate and sustained effort, confirming that the assumption of a false Hindu identity was a carefully planned and resourced strategy designed to sustain the deception across every dimension of the relationship, from the initial introduction to the family meetings and the formal marriage proposal. The psychological manipulation was carried out over several months. He maintained sustained contact not only with the Hindu woman but also with her parents and relatives, providing false information about himself throughout and fabricating an entire false life history. The extension of the manipulation beyond the Hindu woman herself to her entire family reflected a calculated strategy of ensuring that the false Hindu identity was accepted and validated at every level of the family structure, making the eventual discovery of the deception more difficult and its psychological impact more devastating. What gives this case a distinct religious angle is that the Muslim perpetrator actively hid his religion and pretended to be a Hindu to ensnare the Hindu woman. The religious motive of the crime is evident from the fact that the perpetrator intentionally targeted the Hindu woman. This stems from the perpetrators' bias for the Hindu faith, which is why this case has been documented as a hate crime. 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. Iqbal Sheikh first made contact with the Hindu woman in September 2025, marking the beginning of her ordeal. Therefore, September 10, 2025, has been chosen as the indicative incident date, with September as the confirmed month and the 10th taken from the confirmed date of his arrest on March 10, 2026, for consistency. This was recorded for documentation purposes only.