Hindu woman murdered for refusing conversion to Islam as Muslim youth and sister strangle her and dump body

Case ID : 30a8872 | Location : Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 18 May, 2026

Case ID : 30a8872

Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India

18 May, 2026

Hindu woman murdered for refusing conversion to Islam as Muslim youth and sister strangle her and dump body

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Murder upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

A 25-year-old Hindu nurse named Anjali Sharma, a resident of Jagriti Vihar Sector-3, Medical police station area, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, was strangled to death by Sufiyan, a Muslim youth from Lisadi Gate, Meerut, after she refused his demands to forcibly marry him and convert from Hinduism to Islam. His sister Sajida participated in the murder and subsequently dumped Anjali's body at the Medical College campus where she worked, causing widespread panic among hospital staff. As per details, Sufiyan had trapped Anjali Sharma in a love trap and subjected her to sustained pressure to marry him and convert her religion. When Anjali refused, Sufiyan and his sister Sajida strangled her to death in the Lohia Nagar area of Meerut. Following the murder, Sajida loaded Anjali's body onto an e-rickshaw, transported it to the Medical College, left it on the campus, and fled. Anjali Sharma had been married to Sunny, a resident of Medical Sector-8, Meerut, since 2018. They had a five-year-old son named Juhi. Due to family circumstances, Anjali had been living with her brother Pradeep for approximately one year while her son remained with his father, Sunny. She was employed as a nurse in the women's ward of the Medical College. Police arrested Sajida following the discovery of the body. Searches were being conducted for the main accused, Sufiyan, at the time of publication. SP City Vinayak Gopal Bhosale confirmed the details of the case and the circumstances of Anjali's murder.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes" The sub-category here is "Forced conversion for marriage". The tertiary category within this is- Forced to do Nikah. 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. Another subcategory in this case 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 pressurising 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. Another sub-category here is "Murder upon refusal to convert". When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is forced to convert her religion and upon her refusal to do so, the non-Hindu partner murders the victim. 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 pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu woman is first pressurized to change her religion by the non-Hindu man. The pressure could involve threats and/or violence. The trigger to murdering the woman in these cases is her refusal to comply and change her religion under threat and/or force. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The murder of Anjali Sharma was the terminal act of a conversion operation that began with a love trap and ended with strangulation. Sufiyan identified Anjali, cultivated a relationship with her, and then deployed that relationship as the basis for demands that she abandon her Hindu faith, marry him, and convert to Islam. When she refused, he killed her. The sequence is unambiguous. The murder was not the product of romantic rejection or personal grievance. It was the product of a Hindu woman's refusal to surrender her religious identity. The involvement of Sufiyan's sister, Sajida, in the murder and the disposal of the body establishes that this was a family-level operation rather than the act of a single individual. Sajida did not merely assist in concealing the crime after the fact. She participated in the murder itself, then transported Anjali's body on an e-rickshaw to the Medical College and abandoned it there. The coordination between Sufiyan and Sajida reflects a shared commitment to the outcome: the elimination of a Hindu woman who had refused to convert. A family that collectively murders a Hindu woman for refusing to convert and then collectively disposes of her body reflects a household-level ideological investment in the conversion objective that extends the religious motivation of the crime beyond the individual perpetrator. This case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker because the murder of Anjali Sharma was not incidental, opportunistic, or personal. It was deliberate, premeditated, and rooted in a conversion operation in which a Hindu woman's refusal to abandon her faith was treated as a justification for her elimination. Anjali Sharma was targeted specifically because she was Hindu, and she was murdered specifically because she refused to stop being Hindu. Given that religion was the primary motivation here, this case has been classified as a hate crime.