Hindu woman exploited and pressured to convert by Muslim man posing as Hindu; forcibly converted victim's sister and her daughter
Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 
17 December, 2025
Case Summary
In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was sexually exploited and pressured to convert by a Muslim man named Iqrar, who posed as a Hindu. The victim's elder sister and her daughter were also brainwashed and converted to Islam. The incident came to light after the Hindu woman filed a complaint at the CB Ganj police station against the accused, Iqrar, who used a Hindu name, Anand, to lure the victim. According to her, the accused was residing as a tenant, while pretending to be a Hindu man, in the house of the victim’s elder sister, whose husband was deceased, and there existed an internal door connecting the two sisters’ homes. On 18 December 2025, the accused entered the victim’s house armed with a knife, threatened her, and raped her. During the assault, he captured obscene photographs of the victim on his mobile phone and subsequently used these images to blackmail her. Over a period of time, he extorted approximately ₹35,000 from the victim in multiple instalments by threatening to make the photographs public. The situation escalated further on 18 February 2026, when the victim saw the accused offering namaz at her elder sister’s residence and discovered that he had been concealing his identity. Upon confrontation, he disclosed that his name was Iqrar and that he was a Muslim. He then exerted pressure on the victim to convert to Islam. It was also revealed that the accused had already influenced and converted the victim’s elder sister and her younger daughter to Islam. Following the complaint, the police registered a case and arrested the accused, sending him to jail on 15 March 2026. Subsequently, the Fast Track Court of Judge Raghavendra Mani rejected the bail application of the accused, taking serious note of the nature of the offences, which involved rape, criminal intimidation, financial extortion, identity concealment, and coercion for religious conversion.
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. 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 second primary category selected here is - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category selected here is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was raped, blackmailed, and pressured to convert to Islam by a Muslim man identified as Iqrar, who concealed his religious identity by posing as a Hindu under the name Anand. Firstly, the deliberate concealment of identity enabled the accused to gain proximity and trust within a Hindu household, as he resided as a tenant in the victim’s elder sister’s home. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. This act of deception was not incidental but a calculated step to exploit the victim under false pretences, indicating premeditated targeting rooted in her religious identity. By misrepresenting himself, the accused manipulated the social and cultural trust that exists within shared community spaces, thereby weaponising identity concealment as a tool of exploitation. 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, the sexual assault was accompanied by coercion and blackmail, as the accused recorded obscene images of the victim and used them to extort money and exert continued control over her. 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 for conversion as well. 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 Thirdly, when the victim came to know about the accused's real identity, he coerced her into converting 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 Fourth, the fact that the accused had already influenced and converted the victim’s elder sister and her daughter indicates a broader pattern of targeted religious manipulation within the same household. This establishes that the coercion was not an isolated demand made in the aftermath of the assault but part of a larger continuum of influence and indoctrination. The convergence of sexual violence, identity concealment, blackmail, and conversion pressure highlights a structured pattern of abuse where the victim’s Hindu identity became a focal point of exploitation. 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. These acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents. Taken together, the use of deception to infiltrate a Hindu household, followed by sexual violence and pressure to convert, underscores a form of religiously motivated targeting where the victim was not only violated physically but also subjected to attempts at erasing her religious identity. For these reasons, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime involving sexual violence, coercion, and predatory proselytisation. 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 or when they came into contact with the accused. The earliest date mentioned is 18 December 2025, when the accused entered the victim's house with a knife and raped 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 18 December 2025, though the media reported the incident on 9 April 2026.
Victim Details
Total Victim
3
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 3
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 3
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
