Hindu women in Uttarakhand deceived, sexually abused and coerced for conversion by Muslim man concealing religious identity
Naini Tal, Uttarakhand, India 
17 April, 2026
Case Summary
A Muslim man named Mohammad Yunus in Bhimtal, Nainital district, Uttarakhand concealed his true religious identity behind a false name, drew multiple Hindu women into relationships through deceptive promises of marriage, subjected them to sexual abuse, and defrauded them of approximately seventeen lakh rupees. He also pressured them to convert to Islam. The case came to light after a Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] district leader filed a complaint with the police on behalf of the victims. Police searched the accused's room, sealed it, and recovered more than half a dozen mobile phones and goods worth lakhs of rupees, but the accused had already fled the scene. Several Hindu women approached BJP district minister Manoj Bhatt and disclosed that a Muslim man had assumed a false name to conceal his religious identity, drawn them into relationships through promises of marriage, subjected them to sexual abuse, and extracted large sums of money from them. The total amount defrauded across the victims was approximately seventeen lakh rupees. Manoj Bhatt filed a written complaint with the police on their behalf. One of the victims revealed that once the accused's real identity was revealed, he started pressuring her to convert to Islam on the pretext of marriage. She also added that he threatened to defame her if she refused. Police conducted a search of the accused's residence on Bypass Road in Bhimtal. The accused had fled the premises before the police arrived. During the search, police recovered more than half a dozen mobile phones and goods worth lakhs of rupees from his room. The room was subsequently sealed, and an intensive investigation was launched. Police were questioning the accused's family members as part of the investigation. The incident triggered widespread anger among local Hindu organisations and BJP officials in the area. On Saturday, a delegation arrived at Bhimtal Kotawali and submitted a memorandum to the police and administration demanding an impartial investigation and the immediate arrest of the accused. Superintendent of Police Dr Jagdish Chandra confirmed that police had conducted a search of the accused's room following the complaint, that the room had been sealed, and that a formal case would be registered once written complaints were received directly from the victims.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The sub-category for this case is "Man pretends to be Hindu". The tertiary categories for this case "Name changed" and "Pattern for targeting Hindus". 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. Another sub-category for this case is "Brainwashed and/or groomed". The tertiary category for this case 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 other sub-category selected here 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 gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the 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 pressurizing 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. This case qualifies as a religiously motivated hate crime in which a Muslim man in Bhimtal, Nainital district, Uttarakhand, concealed his Muslim identity behind a false Hindu name, systematically identified and groomed multiple Hindu women simultaneously through false promises of marriage, subjected them to sexual abuse, and defrauded them of approximately seventeen lakh rupees. The operation was not a single failed relationship. It was a structured and multi-victim campaign of predatory targeting directed specifically at Hindu women, made possible entirely by the deliberate suppression of the perpetrator's Muslim identity and its replacement with a false Hindu one. The adoption of a false Hindu name to conceal Muslim identity is the foundational religious marker of this case. The perpetrator did not approach the multiple Hindu women he targeted as himself. He assumed a false Hindu name and presented himself as a Hindu man throughout all his relationships with all his victims simultaneously. This act of religious identity substitution was not incidental to the crime. It was its precondition. Without the false Hindu name, none of the relationships would have begun. The perpetrator understood that his Muslim identity would have been a barrier to establishing trust with Hindu women, and he removed that barrier deliberately by replacing his Muslim identity with a fabricated Hindu one. The false name was the key that unlocked access to multiple Hindu women, and it was chosen specifically because it would be most effective against women whose Hindu identity made them most likely to trust a man they believed shared their religious background. The systematic grooming of multiple Hindu women simultaneously is the second religious marker. The perpetrator did not target one Hindu woman through a single deceptive relationship. He cultivated relationships with multiple Hindu women at the same time, using the same false Hindu identity and the same false promise of marriage as the mechanism of entrapment across all of them simultaneously. The scale of the operation, multiple victims, more than half a dozen mobile phones recovered from his room, and goods worth lakhs of rupees, confirms that this was a structured and institutionalised campaign of predatory targeting rather than an opportunistic individual crime. The perpetrator had invested in the infrastructure of deception, maintaining multiple fraudulent relationships with multiple Hindu women concurrently, confirming that the targeting of Hindu women as a category was the deliberate and sustained objective of his operation. The sexual abuse of multiple Hindu women under false promises of marriage is the third religious marker. Each of the Hindu women targeted was subjected to sexual abuse after being drawn into a relationship through the false Hindu identity and the false promise of marriage. The sexual violence was not a spontaneous act within a genuine relationship that turned exploitative. It was the outcome of a premeditated process of religious identity fraud and emotional manipulation, in which the perpetrator manufactured the trust of Hindu women through a fabricated Hindu persona and then exploited that manufactured trust to subject them to sexual abuse. The Hindu identity of the victims was the reason the false name was constructed in the form it was, and the sexual abuse was the direct consequence of the religious deception that made it possible. The pattern of targeting Hindu women as a community is the fourth religious marker. The perpetrator did not target one Hindu woman by chance. He identified and groomed multiple Hindu women simultaneously using the same method, the same false identity, and the same false promise. This repetition across multiple victims confirms that the targeting was directional rather than opportunistic. He was not a man who fell into a series of unconnected personal relationships that turned exploitative. He was a man who had identified Hindu women as his target community, constructed a false Hindu identity to access them, and deployed that identity systematically across multiple victims at the same time. The Hindu identity of his victims was the common thread that defined the pattern, and the pattern itself confirms that their Hindu identity was the reason they were selected. The fifth religious marker in this case is the forced conversion aspect of the Hindu victim. The victim revealed that once the accused's real identity was revealed, he started pressuring her to convert to Islam on the pretext of marriage. She also added that he threatened to defame her if she refused. 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. Furthermore, he also threatened to defame her if she refused. Often in such cases, threats of defamation serve 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; it is systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity, so as to convert the Hindu victim to Islam. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, the conduct of the perpetrator reflected more than a series of personal frauds. By deliberately assuming a false Hindu identity, using it to simultaneously groom multiple Hindu women through manufactured trust and false marriage promises, subjecting them to sexual abuse, and pressuring them for religious conversion, his actions demonstrated a clear and deliberate disregard for the religious identity, dignity, and safety of Hindu women as a community. The Hindu women targeted were selected specifically because they were Hindu, and the false Hindu name was constructed specifically because it would be most effective in gaining the trust of women whose Hindu identity made them most likely to accept a man they believed to be one of their own. This reflects an underlying hostility toward Hindu women rooted in their Hindu identity that cannot be characterised as anything other than religiously motivated. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 1
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
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