Hindu man lured into marriage and financially exploited by Muslim woman pretending to be Hindu in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur

Case ID : 30a8f7e | Location : Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 10 June, 2026

Case ID : 30a8f7e

Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, India

10 June, 2026

Hindu man lured into marriage and financially exploited by Muslim woman pretending to be Hindu in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Case Summary

In Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu vegetable vendor, Puneet Kumar, was lured into marriage by a Muslim woman who concealed her religious identity and posed as a Hindu using a fake Aadhaar card. Following the victim's complaint, police registered a case against three accused and arrested the Muslim woman, identified as Yasmin, wife of Mahir Ali and a resident of Mohalla Sayyadan in Aonla, Bareilly. A fake Aadhaar card bearing the name of a Hindu woman was recovered from her possession. According to the complaint filed by the victim, Puneet Kumar, a resident of Madayya Nadarbag, he worked as a vegetable vendor and had been unable to find a suitable match for marriage. His father had passed away, and he lived with his elderly mother, brother Tarun, and a married sister. He approached his maternal uncle, Vijay Singh, for assistance in arranging his marriage. Vijay Singh then contacted his friend Kallu, a resident of Gajraula, who introduced him to Ram Singh. The victim stated that Kallu and Ram Singh promised to arrange his marriage with a Hindu woman named Riya Gupta from Haridwar and demanded ₹1 lakh for the arrangement. On 11 June 2026, Puneet and his uncle travelled to Bareilly with ₹1 lakh to meet the woman. She introduced herself as Riya Gupta and produced an Aadhaar card bearing the same Hindu name. After taking ₹1 lakh from the victim, the accused got the marriage solemnised. According to the police, Yasmin had used the fake Aadhaar card to conceal her identity and pose as Riya Gupta. During the investigation, it was found that she had carried out the fraud with the assistance of Ram Singh and Kallu. After the wedding, rituals were performed at the groom's house on 12 June 2026. Before the wedding night, Yasmin attempted to leave the house with jewellery and other valuables but was stopped by the victim's relatives. During the ensuing dispute, she disclosed that her real name was Yasmin and that she was a resident of Bareilly. When Yasmin attempted to forcibly leave the house, the family informed the police. She was taken to the police station for questioning, following which the Civil Lines police registered a case of fraud and assault against her. Police subsequently arrested Yasmin and took her into custody, while efforts continued against the other accused involved in arranging the marriage through deception.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women". The sub-category for this case is "Brainwashed and/or groomed". In our database, we have not added incidents where men 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 man for his 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 incident 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 himself says that he was brainwashed/groomed to convert his religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if his family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert his religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to his Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered hate crimes. In this case, the Hindu man was deceived into a marriage by a Muslim woman who posed as a Hindu woman named "Riya Gupta" and used a fake Aadhaar card to conceal her real identity. With the assistance of her accomplices, she secured the victim's trust, accepted ₹1 lakh for the marriage arrangement, and entered his household under false pretences. After the wedding, she attempted to leave the matrimonial home with jewellery and other valuables before the wedding night, at which point her real identity as Yasmin was revealed. Firstly, the perpetrator's decision to conceal her religious identity and assume a fabricated Hindu identity demonstrates a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By presenting herself as a Hindu woman and supporting that deception with forged identity documents, she manipulated the Hindu man's trust and induced him into a marriage he would otherwise have been unable to enter into with full knowledge of the facts. This constituted a direct violation of the victim's right to make an informed decision regarding whom he chose to marry and shows that the deception was carefully planned rather than incidental. The significance of this deception is heightened by the fact that it occurred within the institution of marriage, where trust is fundamentally rooted in the truthful disclosure of identity, family background, and religious affiliation. The marriage legitimised the relationship in the eyes of the victim and his family, enabling the accused to gain unrestricted access to the Hindu household and participate in family rituals and domestic life. The deliberate concealment of her identity therefore exploited not only the victim's personal trust but also the cultural and religious expectations associated with Hindu matrimonial alliances. The involvement of accomplices who arranged the marriage, introduced the accused as a Hindu woman, and relied upon forged documents further reinforces the organised nature of the deception. The coordinated actions of multiple individuals demonstrate that the offence was executed through planning and collaboration rather than spontaneous misrepresentation. The fabricated Hindu identity was an essential component of this coordinated scheme, enabling the accused to obtain acceptance into the victim's family under false pretences. Furthermore, the fact that the deception was designed to financially exploit a Hindu man and his family demonstrates that the perpetrators selectively chose their victims on the basis of religious identity. The deliberate use of a fabricated Hindu identity indicates a conscious recognition that a shared religious identity would facilitate acceptance and minimise suspicion, allowing the perpetrators to exploit the trust associated with Hindu matrimonial customs for monetary gain. This selective targeting transforms the offence from an act of ordinary financial fraud into one intrinsically linked to the victim's religious identity. By exploiting the trust structures of a Hindu family for financial benefit, the perpetrators displayed a deliberate disregard for those beliefs and institutions, reflecting a pattern of identity-based victimisation that points towards religious animosity rather than mere opportunistic criminal conduct. Given that this case meets the parameters of a hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.