Hindu woman deceived into a temple marriage, later forcibly converted to Islam, tortured and murdered by Muslim man posing as Hindu
Hyderabad, Telangana, India 
9 May, 2023
Case Summary
In Hyderabad, Telangana, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and subsequently married as per Hindu temple rituals by a Muslim man who concealed his identity by presenting himself as a Hindu. The victim's family stated that following the marriage, he forcibly converted her to Islam, subjected her to brutal physical abuse, ultimately murdered her, and buried her body in a cemetery. According to the deceased victim's father, Tirath Saket, a resident of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, his 20-year-old daughter, Goldie Saket, met a man identifying himself as Prince through Instagram around three years earlier, in 2023. At the time, she was employed at a biscuit factory in Hyderabad, while the man, who was working at a tailor shop in the same locality, presented himself as a Hindu and gradually developed an online friendship with her. Their interactions eventually blossomed into a romantic relationship. About six months later, the two married in a Hindu temple in Hyderabad. After the marriage, the accused secured a job in Surat, Gujarat, and the couple moved there. During their stay in Surat, Goldie discovered that her husband had concealed his real identity and that his actual name was Sahil Khan and that he was a Muslim. This discovery led to arguments and fights between them. Thereafter, he coerced her into marrying according to Islamic rituals in a mosque in the presence of a Maulvi. Goldie subsequently became pregnant in February 2026, following which Sahil brought her to his residence in Jari Bazaar, Prayagraj. The victim's family stated that Goldie was subjected to severe physical torture, mental harassment, and coercive control after the marriage. According to her mother, Goldie would secretly call her and describe how Sahil stripped her naked and brutally beat her, stating that he found comfort in hearing her screams. She further stated that Goldie was often confined to a room and prevented from communicating freely with her family. The continuous abuse compelled her to return to her parental home in Madhya Pradesh. Sahil arrived at their residence in April 2026, apologised to the family, persuaded them to send Goldie back with him, and took her to Prayagraj. The family stated that after learning that Goldie remained in contact with her mother, Sahil and his family destroyed her SIM card to cut off communication with her relatives. They further said that a dispute arose over a "Mom-Dad" tattoo on her hand, following which her hand was deliberately burned in an attempt to remove the tattoo. According to the family, once she began living with him again, her communication with them steadily diminished. On 6 June 2026, the family received information that Goldie had died. Upon approaching the police, they learnt that she had in fact died on 10 May 2026 and that her body had been buried in a cemetery on 11 May 2026 in accordance with Islamic rituals without their knowledge. Shocked by the news, the family immediately travelled from Rewa district in Madhya Pradesh to Kaundhiara in Prayagraj and approached the police. They stated that Sahil Khan had concealed his identity, married Goldie through deception, coerced her to convert to Islam, subjected her to physical abuse, murdered her, and buried her body. Taking cognisance of the complaint, the police exhumed Goldie's body from the cemetery on 16 June 2026, thirty-five days after her burial, in the presence of administrative officials and sent it for post-mortem examination. The post-mortem examination did not specify the cause of death. The accused was taken into custody for questioning, while the police stated that they were investigating all aspects of the case. The victim's sister, Seetu, stated that Sahil had deceived Goldie by concealing his identity, married her under false pretences, forced her to undergo conversion, and ultimately killed her, while the family demanded a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death. On the other hand, the Muslim man claimed that his wife fell ill on 10 May 2026, after which the family took her to a private hospital, but her condition deteriorated, and she was shifted to SRN (Swaroop Rani Nehru) Hospital, where she passed away. On 11 May 2026, they performed her last rites per Islamic traditions and laid her to rest in the graveyard.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The first primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories selected are: Name Changed, Marries as per Hindu rituals, Raped and/or murdered after Hindu woman finds out real identity. 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 subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary category selected is: Family/Friends of deceased victim says she was brainwashed/groomed. 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 subcategory selected is: Forced conversion after marriage. The tertiary category selected is: Forced to 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. In this case, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and subsequently married by a Muslim man who concealed his identity by presenting himself as a Hindu. According to her family, following the marriage, she was subjected to forceful conversion, brutal physical abuse, ultimately murdered, and her body was buried in a cemetery. Although the victim was an adult, her death prevents her from recounting the circumstances that led to her ordeal. In such a situation, the statements of her immediate family, who have detailed the sequence of events, the accused's concealment of his identity, the abuse she endured after the marriage, and the circumstances surrounding her death and burial, assume considerable evidentiary significance and serve as the primary account of what transpired. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of concealing his religious identity by posing as a Hindu demonstrates a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true identity, he manipulated the Hindu woman's trust and specifically targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit her on the basis of her religious background. Furthermore, the temple marriage legitimised the relationship in the eyes of the victim, her family, and the wider Hindu community, depriving her of the opportunity to make an informed decision about whom she wished to marry and violating her religious autonomy. The deliberate concealment of his identity therefore strongly underscores the religious dimension of the crime. In such cases, identity concealment is not merely a form of personal deception but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware that the victim, being Hindu, might not have entered into the relationship or marriage had she known his true identity, and he circumvented this by falsely presenting himself as a Hindu, pointing to a religiously motivated intent. Such deception reflects a broader pattern in which Hindu women are singled out through false identities by Muslim men, enabling perpetrators to gain their trust and establish intimate relationships that would otherwise be unlikely to occur. This form of targeted victimisation, based on the victim's religious identity, demonstrates a disregard for her faith, her autonomy, and her right to make informed personal choices. It transforms the deception from an individual act of dishonesty into one that specifically exploits the victim's Hindu identity, thereby reflecting hostility towards her religious beliefs and community. The use of a Hindu temple marriage as an instrument of deception further reinforces the religious character of the offence. Within Hindu tradition, a marriage solemnised in a temple is regarded as a sacred religious sacrament and carries profound spiritual, cultural, and social significance for the couple and their families. By invoking this sacred institution while concealing his identity, the perpetrator exploited a practice held in high esteem within the Hindu faith to secure the victim's trust and participation in the marriage. Using a sacred Hindu ritual as a means of targeting and facilitating the victim's subsequent conversion demonstrates a deliberate exploitation of Hindu religious beliefs and symbols, reflecting hostility towards the victim's religious identity and the sanctity attached to those practices. After the victim discovered the perpetrator's true identity, she was made to convert to Islam and underwent a nikah ceremony. This conversion did not arise from an informed, voluntary, or transparent choice but followed a relationship and temple marriage that had been secured through identity concealment and deception. By the time the truth emerged, the victim had already entered into what she believed to be a valid Hindu marriage and had invested emotionally, socially, and personally in that relationship. She therefore found herself in a position of heightened vulnerability, where withdrawing from the marriage would have carried significant emotional, familial, and social consequences. Exploiting that vulnerability to secure her conversion deprived her of the opportunity to exercise genuine religious choice and autonomy. Rather than representing an independent expression of faith, the conversion formed part of a continuous sequence of deception, manipulation, and coercive control that stripped the victim of her right to retain and practise her Hindu identity. Such conduct amounts to a profound violation of her religious autonomy and fundamental freedom of conscience, as her faith and identity were subordinated to the perpetrator's objectives through deception and sustained pressure. The subsequent nikah further strengthened the religious dimension of the incident. Under Islamic jurisprudence, a non-Muslim woman cannot marry a Muslim man unless she converts to Islam. The victim was first deceived into a relationship, then induced into a temple marriage under a false Hindu identity, and only after the deception came to light was she made to undergo conversion and a nikah ceremony. In this context, the nikah served not merely as the solemnisation of a personal relationship but as the formalisation and institutionalisation of a religious transformation that followed identity concealment and coercive circumstances. The sequence demonstrates a progression in which the victim's original Hindu identity was displaced within the marital framework and replaced through a conversion that was neither free nor informed. By using deception to establish the relationship and subsequently leveraging the victim's vulnerable position to secure her conversion and nikah, the perpetrator transformed the marriage into an instrument of religious dominance rather than mutual consent. Viewed in its entirety, the sequence of identity concealment, temple marriage, conversion, and nikah reinforces the religiously targeted nature of the conduct and reflects a serious infringement of the victim's freedom to preserve and practise her own Hindu faith. Furthermore, the severe physical torture and ultimate killing of the Hindu woman demonstrate the depth of hostility that accompanies religiously targeted victimisation. Once a Hindu woman is specifically targeted through deception because of her religious identity, and then forcibly converted, the subsequent violence cannot be viewed as an isolated or unrelated act. Instead, the physical abuse, torture, and eventual killing form a continuous sequence of conduct in which the initial religious targeting escalates into extreme violence, reinforcing the hate-driven character of the offence. The torture and killing of a woman who was first targeted because she was Hindu amplify the religious animosity evident at the very outset of the incident. The violence inflicted upon her reflects hostility directed not merely at an individual but at her Hindu identity itself. The progression from religious deception to sustained abuse and ultimately to her death showcases the depth of hostility directed towards a Hindu woman and, by extension, towards the Hindu community. Viewed in its entirety, the sequence of religious targeting, physical torture, and killing makes the hate crime motivation behind the case unmistakably clear. Since this case meets the parameters of a hate-driven offence, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal begins rather than when it is reported by the media. In this case, media reports were published on 16 June 2026. The victim died on 10 May 2026, while the victim's parents stated that she first met the accused and was drawn into the relationship around three years earlier. Based on this timeline, the first instance of deception and targeting would have occurred around May 2023. Accordingly, 10 May 2023 is being recorded as the indicative incident date, as it marks the beginning of the victim's ordeal according to the information presently available. This date is recorded for documentation purposes only.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
1
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
