Hindu woman deceived and lured away by Muslim man posing as Hindu: victim taken to mosque, forcibly converted to Islam for nikah

Case ID : 30a90ce | Location : Sonipat, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 14 June, 2026

Case ID : 30a90ce

Sonipat, Haryana, India

14 June, 2026

Hindu woman deceived and lured away by Muslim man posing as Hindu: victim taken to mosque, forcibly converted to Islam for nikah

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

In Sonipat, Haryana, a Hindu woman was deceived and taken away by a Muslim man named Salman, who had concealed his religious identity and introduced himself as a Hindu man. He took her to a mosque in Bihar and converted her to Islam for nikah According to the reports, the victim went missing from her home on 15 June 2026, prompting her family to approach the police and file a missing person complaint. Her father later identified Salman as the individual responsible for taking her away and informed the authorities that Salman had developed a relationship with his daughter while pretending to be a Hindu man named Amit. According to the family, Salman gained the woman's trust under the false name and gradually drew her away from her family. When the victim's family searched for her, it led them to discover that Salman had taken her to Bihar, where he converted her to Islam inside a mosque and subsequently performed nikah with her. The victim's father stated that she had become an adult about 6 months ago, in January 2026 and that Salman had manipulated and mentally influenced her before taking her away. Family members further stated that when she was rescued, she appeared disoriented and had been subjected to sustained psychological pressure. Dissatisfied with the initial response to the missing person complaint, the family escalated the matter to the Sonipat Police Commissioner, following which the investigation intensified. During the course of the inquiry, Salman arrived at the police station with the victim. The police informed her family, who reached the station along with members of a Hindu organisation. The victim was medically examined and thereafter handed over to her family. Investigators subsequently found that Salman (27) was already married and was the father of two children. His wife had been living separately from him at her parental home. Police stated that preliminary findings indicated that the victim had been forcibly converted to Islam before the nikah. Based on the findings of the investigation, Sonipat Police registered a case under the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2022, along with relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Salman was arrested and taken into custody. The police confirmed that the investigation remained ongoing and that further action would be taken on the basis of the woman's statement, medical examination and other evidence collected during the inquiry.

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 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 sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or 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 sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to do nikah. 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 her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the 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 pressurizing 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was deceived and taken away by a Muslim man who concealed his religious identity and presented himself as a Hindu man named Amit. The accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu woman. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. The case further involves the conversion of the Hindu victim to Islam and the performance of a nikah after she was taken away from her family. According to the police investigation, preliminary findings indicated that the victim had been forcibly converted before the marriage ceremony. The fact that criminal proceedings were initiated under the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2022, underscores that the authorities found sufficient grounds to investigate the conversion as unlawful. Furthermore, in Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which is why she was pressured for religious conversion. Compelling or coercing a Hindu individual to abandon her faith and embrace another religion constitutes an attack on her religious identity and freedom of conscience. Religious conversion obtained through deception, manipulation, coercion or undue influence reflects religious animosity because the act is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. An additional aggravating factor in this case is that the accused was already married and the father of two children, yet concealed these facts while simultaneously hiding his religious identity. This pattern of deception demonstrates that the relationship was built not on informed consent but on deliberate misrepresentation. The subsequent conversion to Islam and nikah revealed that the concealment of identity was not merely a personal lie but part of a process that culminated in the abandonment of the victim's original faith. Such conduct reflects disregard for the victim's religious beliefs and autonomy, as her Hindu identity was treated as an obstacle to be overcome through deception rather than respected. The victim's father stated that she had attained adulthood only six months earlier before he took her away, making her particularly vulnerable to manipulation and undue influence. She appeared disoriented when she was recovered, coupled with the fact that she had been subjected to sustained psychological pressure, further proves that the deception, conversion and marriage were not the result of free and informed choice. The targeting of a recently adult Hindu woman through a false Hindu identity, followed by her conversion to Islam, demonstrates a pattern of conduct in which deception was used as a tool to undermine and replace the victim's religious 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. Taken together, the concealment of religious identity, the targeting of a Hindu woman through a fabricated Hindu persona, the forcible conversion to Islam, and the subsequent nikah establish a pattern in which the victim's Hindu identity became central to the commission of the offence. 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.