Hindu woman groomed, sexually exploited, subjected to forced conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30a8cc0 | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 3 December, 2024

Case ID : 30a8cc0

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

3 December, 2024

Hindu woman groomed, sexually exploited, subjected to forced conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to wear Hijab

Blackmailed to convert

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was sexually assaulted and blackmailed over an extended period by a Muslim man posing as Hindu. The accused, Zubair of Alambagh, Lucknow, entered the victim’s life under the false name “Karan”, presenting himself as Hindu before subjecting her to sustained sexual abuse, financial extraction, conversion pressure, physical assault, and blackmail. Approximately one and a half years before the complaint, the victim met Zubair, a resident of Alambagh, Lucknow. He introduced himself as Karan and claimed to be Hindu. On the basis of this false identity, he cultivated a friendship with the victim and subsequently proposed marriage, securing her trust and emotional commitment. Once the relationship was established, the accused took the victim to various locations on different occasions, administered an intoxicating substance to her, and sexually assaulted her. He also recorded objectionable videos of her during this period. The accused subsequently threatened to make these videos public if the victim resisted or came forward. In parallel, the accused extracted cash and jewellery from the victim on the pretext of business investment and other financial requirements, none of which were returned. When the victim began pressing for marriage, her own enquiries revealed that the man she had known as Karan was in fact Zubair, a Muslim. Once his identity was uncovered, the accused began evading the subject of marriage. The accused and his family then pressured the victim to convert to Islam as a condition for marriage. She was compelled to wear a burqa. A financial inducement of Rs 12 lakh was offered to her to convert. When the victim refused, the accused, two of his sisters and mother threatened to kill her, and threatened to release the videos they had recorded of her. The victim subsequently approached the police. A case was registered against Zubair and his family members under various applicable sections of law at Para Police Station. The victim’s medical examination was conducted at the time of reporting. Her statement before a magistrate was recorded. Police stated that the matter was under investigation and that efforts were under way to apprehend the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected is - Man pretends to be Hindu. Under this, the tertiary category selected is - Name changed. 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 malicious 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 subcategory selected in this case is "Forced conversion before marriage". The tertiary categories here are "Forced to wear Hijab". 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 to his religion and give up her religious identity. In both 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 pressurising 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. Another sub-category for this case 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 to another religion, owing to her religious identity as 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. Another sub-category for 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 subcategory selected in this case is - Brainwashed and/or groomed. Under this, the tertiary categories selected are "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’ 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 are crimes, for 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 hate crimes. This case was included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because the conduct of the accused, examined in its entirety, revealed a sequence of acts that were not merely criminal in the general sense but were specifically directed at the victim by reason of her Hindu religious identity. At the outset, the accused chose to present himself as Hindu, adopted a Hindu name and concealed his Muslim identity only to gain the victim’s trust to enter a relationship. It is important to note here that the accused had knowledge that the victim would not otherwise consent to this relationship. This foundational deception was not incidental to what followed; it was the precondition for everything that followed. The victim’s Hindu religious identity was, from the very first moment of contact, the specific quality being targeted and manipulated. Furthermore, the recordings of the sexual exploitation were subsequently used to blackmail her, not for financial gain, but as a mechanism of coercive control directed, ultimately, at compelling her to abandon her Hindu religious identity. The blackmail and the conversion demand were not separate crimes that happened to coincide; the blackmail was the instrument through which the conversion was to be extracted. Additionally, the accused’s conduct at this stage revealed the true architecture of his intent. The offer of financial inducement for conversion was not generosity; it was the first instrument of a transaction in which the victim’s Hindu identity was the thing being purchased away from her. When that instrument failed, violence and blackmail replaced it. The seamless shift from inducement to assault upon her refusal exposed that the accused had never viewed her Hindu identity as a neutral fact about her. He viewed it as an obstacle, and he was willing to deploy progressively severe coercion until that obstacle was removed. The religious motivation became clearer when the accused's family began coercing the victim to wear a burqa. Burqa is not merely a garment. It was an act of premature possession, an attempt to visibly overwrite her Hindu identity before her consent to conversion had even been secured. Such coercive tactics directly infringe upon a Hindu woman's religious freedom, stripping her of the right to practice her own faith and maintain her religious identity. The use of force in converting her, along with compelling her to observe Islamic rituals, demonstrates an attempt to erase her Hindu identity and impose Islamic practices upon her. When they resist these impositions, the perpetrator's resort to violence, further highlighting the underlying religious intolerance. The physical assault inflicted upon victims in such cases are not just an act of domestic abuse; it is deeply intertwined with religious bigotry, as it gets triggered by the victim's refusal to abandon their faith and conform to the perpetrator's demands. Taken together, these acts demonstrated that the accused’s ultimate purpose throughout the relationship had not been companionship but conquest, the religious conquest of a Hindu woman who had been made accessible to him only through the erasure of his own identity. This incident, similarly, was not a case where a relationship developed and religious differences created friction. This was a case where the religious identity of the victim was the reason she was targeted, the deception was designed around it, the exploitation was sustained through it, and the violence was triggered by her refusal to surrender it. The case, therefore, qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime directed against the victim’s Hindu identity across every stage of the accused’s conduct from the first false introduction to the final threat. Disclaimer: The exact date of the initial contact between the Hindu woman and the perpetrator was not specified in the available sources. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was published or reported. Here, though the precise beginning of the relationship and grooming process remained unclear, it is mentioned that the victim came in contact with accused one and a half years before she filed the complaint. Therefore, the daye of incident has been kept as one and a half years prior to 04 June 2026, the publication date of the report. This has been used as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.