Several Hindu women deceived under pretext of marriage and financially exploited by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu army officer

Case ID : 30a7a96 | Location : Kaithal, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 6 April, 2026

Case ID : 30a7a96

Kaithal, Haryana, India

6 April, 2026

Several Hindu women deceived under pretext of marriage and financially exploited by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu army officer

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Case Summary

In Kaithal, Haryana, several Hindu women were deceived and exploited by a Muslim man named Mehrajuddin Azam, who pretended to be a Hindu man working in the Indian army. According to reports, the accused, Mehrajuddin Azam, was a resident of Pulwama district and had been posing as an Indian Army officer to lure Hindu victims into relationships and extract money. The accused had created a false Hindu identity under the name Nishant Saharan and presented himself as a Major in the Indian Army on the matrimonial platform Shaadi.com. He used fabricated credentials, including a fake identity card, photographs in military uniform, and false claims of owning 120 acres of land, in order to build trust with Hindu women. The matter came to light when Kaithal police intercepted the accused while he was travelling by taxi to Hisar to meet a Hindu woman. During this time, he was questioned, which revealed inconsistencies in his claims to be an Army Major, leading to his true identity being revealed. An army uniform was recovered from his possession, further indicating the extent of impersonation used in the deception. Subsequent interrogation by Hisar police revealed that the accused had deceived more than ten Hindu women through this fabricated identity, establishing relationships under false pretences and promising marriage while concealing his real identity and religious background. In one instance, he extracted ₹30,000 from a Hindu woman in Hisar through manipulation tied to the false promise of marriage. A formal complaint was registered against him at the Azad Nagar Police Station in Hisar, following which he was taken into custody for further investigation. During questioning, he admitted to creating the fake profile on Shaadi.com and using it to contact and engage multiple Hindu women, systematically gaining their trust before exploiting them financially. The police initiated further inquiries to determine the full extent of the network, including whether other individuals were involved in facilitating or supporting the fraudulent activities carried out by the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is- 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 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. This case has been added to the tracker because several Hindu women were deceived and exploited by the Muslim man accused, Mehrajuddin Azam, who pretended to be a Hindu man working in the Indian army. The accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with Hindu women. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited their trust and targeted them under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate them 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. In such instances, identity concealment is not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons, but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware that the victim, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically singled out using false identities by Muslim men. Such targeted victimisation based on religion not only demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism but also exposed a deeper animosity toward Hindus and their beliefs. Furthermore, the accused's actions were not limited to a single instance of deception but followed a repeated pattern of targeting multiple Hindu women through the same method of identity concealment and impersonation. The revelation that he had deceived more than ten Hindu women using a fabricated Hindu identity and false claims of being an officer in the Indian Army pointed to a systematic approach rather than an isolated incident. The consistent use of the same strategy demonstrated a recurring modus operandi that specifically focused on victims from a particular religious background. Such repetition reinforced the inference that the targeting was deliberate and rooted in religious profiling rather than incidental interaction. In conclusion, the case underscored a concerning pattern of deception where religious identity was strategically manipulated to exploit and target Hindu women. The deliberate concealment of identity, repeated victimisation, and calculated use of false pretences highlighted an element of targeted exploitation that extended beyond individual wrongdoing. This incident, therefore, reflected not only a breach of trust and criminal deception but also pointed towards a deeper pattern of religiously motivated targeting. Therefore, this case has been added to the tracker. 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 accused began trapping the Hindu victims. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media, 7 April 2026. Disclaimer: It was stated that the accused had targeted more than ten Hindu women; however, for the purpose of this documentation, the number of victims has been conservatively recorded as 10.