Minor Hindu girl raped and blackmailed for religious conversion by Muslim man, posing as Hindu; subjected to death threats and assault upon refusal
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
9 May, 2024
Case Summary
In the Sairpur area of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was deceived, sexually exploited and blackmailed for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Shoaib Akhtar, posing as a Hindu. According to reports, the accused, Shoaib Akhtar, originally from Karda village in the Wazirganj area of Gonda district, operated a salon near Chhathamil on Raitha Road in Lucknow. He systematically targeted Hindu girls by concealing his religious identity and posing as a Hindu under the name “Saurabh Singh” on social media platforms. Using the fake Hindu identity, he contacted Hindu girls through Instagram and gradually established personal relationships with them. One such victim was a 15-year-old Hindu girl whom he had befriended nearly two years earlier, in 2024, when she was just 13, after introducing himself online as “Saurabh Singh”. Through continuous conversations and emotional manipulation, he gained the trust of the minor girl and lured her into a relationship on the pretext of marriage. Over time, he sexually exploited her and created obscene photographs and videos of her without regard for her safety or dignity. As the relationship progressed, the victim discovered that the accused's real name was, in fact, Shoaib Akhtar, a Muslim man who had deliberately hidden his real identity in order to trap her. Following this revelation, Shoaib began subjecting the minor victim to abuse, intimidation, and coercion. He pressured the minor Hindu girl to convert to Islam and repeatedly used her obscene photos and videos to blackmail her into conversion. Furthermore, whenever the victim resisted conversion or attempted to distance herself from him, he threatened to make the compromising material public and warned that he would kill her family members. The victim was also physically assaulted after refusing to comply with his demands. Eventually, Shoaib circulated the obscene photographs and videos, causing humiliation, fear, and psychological trauma to the minor girl. Terrified by the threats and violence, the victim remained silent for a prolonged period before finally informing her family about the abuse she had endured. The case came to public attention after the victim’s family approached the Sairpur police station and filed a formal complaint. Simultaneously, members of the Sanatan Sangh organisation, who had been tracking Shoaib Akhtar’s activities for several months, apprehended him and handed him over to the police. During the investigation, police recovered numerous objectionable photographs and videos from Shoaib’s mobile phone. Reports stated that the material included compromising content involving several Hindu girls, including multiple minors, revealing that the accused had targeted numerous victims using the same method of deception, sexual exploitation, and blackmail. Investigators also examined his Instagram accounts and digital communications, which showed that he consistently used a fabricated Hindu identity to approach and manipulate Hindu girls online. Further scrutiny of Shoaib Akhtar’s mobile phone led to the recovery of a call recording in which another individual assured him of support in case any action was initiated against him. This prompted police to investigate the possibility of a broader organised network operating behind the accused. Reports also stated that investigators began probing suspected links between Shoaib and the Chhangur gang due to geographical connections between his native district and the neighbouring district associated with the gang’s activities. Police initiated a detailed examination of his call records, social media accounts, digital data, and contacts in an attempt to identify additional victims and determine whether other individuals were involved in facilitating or supporting the activities. Based on the complaint filed by the victim and the evidence recovered during the investigation, police registered a case against Shoaib Akhtar under serious charges related to religious conversion, sexual exploitation, criminal intimidation, circulation of obscene material, and provisions of the Information Technology Act. The accused was taken into custody and subjected to interrogation while police continued investigating the full extent of the operation, the identities of additional victims, and the possibility of organised involvement in targeting Hindu girls through false religious identities and coercive conversion tactics.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category for this case is "Predatory Proselytisation". Within it, the sub-category selected is - Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation and subtle indoctrination. The tertiary categories selected is - Rape and sexual assault, Conversion of minor and Pattern of targeting Hindus. 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. The other sub-category selected here - 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 second primary category selected here is - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected here are - 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary categories selected here are - Rape and sexual assault, Conversion of minor and Pattern of targeting minors. 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 - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. 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 has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was deceived, sexually exploited and blackmailed for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Shoaib Akhtar, posing as a Hindu. Firstly, it is important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Furthermore, any supposed consent given for sexual relations or converting religion is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate. Such acts are not merely criminal in nature; they are ideologically charged, revealing religious prejudice and a calculated intent to alter the religious identity of a minor without her volition. The use of grooming, where trust is built only to exploit, is an insidious method that exploits the child’s naivety and dependence. Secondly, the accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu woman. This itself 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 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. Thirdly, the Muslim accused sexually exploited the minor victim and discreetly recorded obscene videos of her and uploaded them on social media. 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. 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 Fourth, the accused later pressured the minor Hindu girl to convert to Islam and repeatedly used her obscene photos and videos to blackmail her into conversion. 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 is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Fifth, when the victim resisted conversion or attempted to distance herself from him, he threatened to make the compromising material public and warned that he would kill her family members. The victim was also physically assaulted after refusing to comply with his demands, and he circulated obscene photographs and videos of her. Often in such cases, sexual violence, threats or physical violence 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. Sixth, it was also revealed that the accused did not confine his actions to a single victim, but used similar methods to target multiple Hindu girls, including minors. The repeated pattern of concealing his religious identity, building deceptive relationships, sexually exploiting victims, recording compromising material, and subsequently using intimidation and coercion to pressure them for religious conversion demonstrates that this was not an isolated or spontaneous act driven merely by personal motives. Rather, the recurrence of the same modus operandi against Hindu girls specifically points towards a systematic pattern of targeting, rooted in religious animosity. The deliberate selection of Hindu victims, combined with the repeated use of deception, emotional manipulation, blackmail and conversion pressure, reveals an organised pattern of predatory conduct rooted in hostility towards the religious identity of the victims. Such repeated acts strengthen the inference that the crimes were not random interpersonal offences, but part of a broader pattern in which Hindu girls were specifically identified, targeted and exploited because of their faith. The existence of multiple similarly targeted victims also demonstrates premeditation and reinforces the conclusion that the accused’s actions were motivated not only by criminal intent, but also by religiously motivated prejudice and an attempt to undermine the religious identity and dignity of Hindu victims through coercion, fear and 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. Therefore, religious conversions, even of minors, are often seen as a badge of honour, totally disregarding the methods used to achieve it. 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: The Hinduphobia Tracker acknowledges that the accused had similarly targeted multiple Hindu girls using the same pattern of deception, exploitation and coercion. However, as of the date of writing this report, only one victim has formally come forward and lodged a police complaint regarding the incident. Accordingly, for the purposes of documentation and evidentiary accuracy, the victim count in this case has been recorded as 1. 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 2024. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 10 May 2024, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 10 May 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 1
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
