Hindu man attempts self-immolation after facing sustained pressure to convert to Islam by his Muslim wife and mother-in-law

Case ID : 30a8cb7 | Location : Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 3 February, 2026

Case ID : 30a8cb7

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

3 February, 2026

Hindu man attempts self-immolation after facing sustained pressure to convert to Islam by his Muslim wife and mother-in-law

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Forced to convert after marriage

Threatened to convert by family of partner

Blackmailed to convert

Case Summary

In Ghaziabad district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu man named Kapil Sharma attempted self-immolation inside the Muradnagar police station after facing sustained harassment and pressure to convert to Islam from his Muslim wife and mother-in-law. The incident occurred on 4 June 2026 when Kapil arrived at the police station with his two minor children and, in a state of distress, poured petrol over himself and attempted to ignite it with a matchstick. Police personnel present at the station intervened immediately, snatched the matchstick from his hand, and prevented the suicide attempt. It was revealed that Kapil Sharma, a resident of Matora village in Mathura district, had married a Muslim woman named Ashma alias Asha Sharma approximately ten years earlier, and the couple had two children. He had previously lived and worked in Greater Noida but moved to Jeetpur Colony in Muradnagar four months ago, in February 2026, after his wife brought him there. According to his statement to the police, his wife and mother-in-law had been persistently pressuring him to abandon his Hindu faith and convert to Islam. He stated that they had threatened to force his conversion during a religious gathering and had repeatedly subjected him to intimidation when he refused to comply. The victim further stated that his mother-in-law routinely takes away all his earnings and that both his wife and mother-in-law threatened severe consequences if he continued to resist conversion. He was also receiving threats directed towards his children and feared for their safety. Kapil informed the police that he had submitted a complaint regarding the matter at the Muradnagar police station two days before the incident. However, when no action followed, he became frustrated and resorted to the extreme step of attempting to end his life within the police station premises. Following the incident, police officials assured that an investigation would be conducted and that appropriate legal action would be taken based on the findings.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Forced conversion after marriage. In such cases, a non-Hindu woman marries a Hindu man and the force/pressure against the Hindu man to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, the marriage is consensual in most cases and often, there is no element of the non-Hindu woman hiding her religious identity. 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 woman starts to pressure the Hindu man to convert to Islam after marriage. In such cases, there is application of force/pressure by the perpetrator, including, denial of the man’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the man is forced/pressured to convert include forcing/pressurizing the man to involuntarily consume beef, pressurizing/forcing to read the Kalma, forced circumcision, forced to go to the mosque, etc. There are several instances where after marriage, the man 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 here is - Threatened to convert by family of partner. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man faces threats to convert and change his religious identity by the non-Hindu woman or her family. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert to Islam and also assaults the victim to force him to convert. 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 man 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 man was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The other sub-category selected here is - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is blackmailed to convert his religion. 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 woman starts blackmailing a Hindu man to convert his religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu man is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to his 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu man, Kapil Sharma, was subjected to sustained pressure to abandon his Hindu faith and convert to Islam by his Muslim wife and mother-in-law. According to the victim, the coercion was accompanied by threats, intimidation, economic control, and the use of his children as leverage to compel his religious conversion. A central element that makes this incident a hate crime is the sustained pressure exerted on the victim to convert from Hinduism to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard his religious faith and embrace another religion constitutes a direct attack on his religious identity, personal autonomy, and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. The actions directed against the victim were therefore rooted in religious animosity towards his continued adherence to Hinduism. The victim further stated that when he resisted conversion, he was subjected to threats and intimidation. Such threats are significant because they transform religious persuasion into religious coercion. In cases involving forced conversion, threats serve a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually until resistance becomes impossible. By threatening him for refusing to abandon his faith, the perpetrators sought to create an atmosphere of fear in which adherence to Hinduism carried dangerous consequences. This was not random intimidation arising from a domestic disagreement; rather, it was targeted coercion directed at compelling the victim to surrender his religious beliefs. The systematic nature of the threats, coupled with the explicit demand for conversion, demonstrates a pattern of conduct rooted in religious hostility and directed against the victim's Hindu identity. Another aggravating aspect of the case is the use of the victim's children as a tool of blackmail to facilitate religious conversion. The victim stated that the perpetrators threatened to kill his children if he continued to refuse conversion. The exploitation of parental fears in this manner represents a particularly coercive form of pressure. Rather than respecting the victim's freedom of conscience, the perpetrators leveraged his emotional attachment to his children in an attempt to force compliance with their religious demands. The children thus became instruments of coercion in a campaign aimed at compelling the victim to embrace Islam. This tactic demonstrates that the objective was not merely familial control but the attainment of a religious outcome through intimidation and psychological pressure. The use of threats involving children further underscores the targeted and calculated nature of the coercion. The severity of the conversion-related pressure is further evident from the fact that the victim ultimately attempted to take his own life inside a police station. In this case, the suicide attempt was linked to his distress from the sustained pressure to abandon his Hindu faith, the threats directed at him and his children, and the continued harassment he faced for refusing conversion. The incident highlights the profound psychological trauma that the perpetrators inflicted on him for his religious conversion. Taken together, the pressure to convert, the threats issued upon refusal, the attempts to force participation in conversion-related activities, and the use of the victim's children as leverage establish a pattern of conduct directed at undermining and ultimately erasing the victim's Hindu identity. 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 have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that he shifted to Muradnagar in February 2024, after which he was pressured for conversion. Furthermore, the accused attempted to self-immolate on 4 June 2026. Considering these two pieces of information, we are using an indicative date of 4 February 2026 as the date of the incident. This date is used for documentation purposes only and represents the estimated beginning of his ordeal.