Hindu girl raped and coerced into religious conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu; assaulted and tortured for refusing to convert
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India 
24 April, 2024
Case Summary
In Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu girl was lured, sexually exploited and coerced for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Aftab Ansari, who posed as a Hindu. The incident came to light after the victim, working in catering services, filed a police complaint against the accused, Aftab Ansari. The two first came into contact in April 2024 during a wedding event where the accused, Aftab Ansari, introduced himself as a Hindu man named Amit Kumar. During this time, the accused gradually established a relationship with the victim by promising her regular employment and obtained her phone number. Over time, he took her to hotels in the Cantonment area where he repeatedly sexually exploited her while continuing to misrepresent his religious identity. On 25 March 2025, he married her at a Kali temple in Chowkaghat as per Hindu rituals, with only a few associates present, whom he falsely introduced as family members. The victim’s family also provided cash and other expenses for the marriage, believing his fabricated identity. Instead of taking her to his family home, he kept her in a rented accommodation in Lahartara, Varanasi. During this time, the accused's real identity was revealed, that he was a Muslim, and his real name was Aftab Ansari. Following the revelation, when the victim protested, the accused physically assaulted her and began pressuring her to convert to Islam. He subsequently took her to his residence in Rasulpur, where his family members, including his father Nabi Rasool and brother Mitthu Ansari, held her hostage and tortured her. During this confinement, she was subjected to repeated sexual assault, including by the accused’s brother, Mitthu. She was also threatened with severe consequences, including harm to her family, if she refused to convert. The victim also stated that the accused and his brother were involved in trafficking activities, with references to selling women in cities such as Mumbai. She said that Aftab and his brother lure poor girls into love affairs and then take them abroad to sell them. After enduring prolonged captivity and abuse, she managed to escape and informed her family, following which a formal complaint was filed. The police registered a case under multiple provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, naming the accused and his family members for rape, unlawful confinement, assault, criminal intimidation, and conversion-related offences. When the accused was brought to the Kotwali police station for questioning, he managed to flee from custody while legal proceedings were underway. As of the date of writing this report, multiple police teams were deployed to locate and apprehend him.
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 sub-category for this case is - Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories for this case are - Name changed and Marries as per Hindu rituals. 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 sub-category 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 other sub-category selected is - Forced conversion after marriage. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to any Abrahamic faith, like Islam, begins after marriage. 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. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert her religion after marriage. 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 situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. The other sub-category selected 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 has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was deliberately targeted, lured, and deceived by the Muslim accused, Aftab Ansari, who posed as a Hindu, to establish a relationship under false pretences. He subsequently sexually exploited her and coerced her to convert her religion through threats and abuse. Firstly, the accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu girl. This is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her 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 is an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs, reflecting a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, the Muslim accused married the Hindu woman inside a Hindu temple, according to Hindu customs, to further mislead her into believing that he was a Hindu. The choice to marry her in a temple, a sacred space for Hindus, further highlights the malicious intent behind the act. This was a significant violation of the woman’s religious beliefs, as it exploits her faith and religious practices to entrap her in a marriage founded on lies. The use of a temple marriage serves to legitimise the union in the eyes of the woman and her community, making the deception all the more egregious. Thirdly, the accused also sexually exploited her, while maintaining the deception of being a Hindu. This was not a random act of sexual abuse; it was a targeted assault driven by religious bias, aimed at singling out and violating a Hindu girl because of her religious identity, as he later pressured her for conversion. Such acts of exploitation through manipulation and religious deception clearly underline the religiously motivated nature of this crime. Fourth, when the accused's real identity was revealed, he 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. Fifth, when the victim refused to convert to Islam, she was subjected to physical assault and death threats, which starkly showcased the accused's religious zeal, ready to go to any length to change her faith identity. The accused, along with his family, held her hostage, raped her and physically assaulted her, escalating violence in direct response to her defence of Hinduism, proving his intolerance extended beyond persuasion to brutal enforcement. This willingness to assault her physically for upholding her faith marked it as a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. Often in such cases, sexual violence 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. 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, though it is mentioned that the victim came into contact with the accused in April 2024. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 25 April 2024, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 25 April 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
