Hindu woman blackmailed into a relationship, her photographs obscenely morphed, and issued death threats by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : 30a9331 | Location : Faridabad, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 28 June, 2026

Case ID : 30a9331

Faridabad, Haryana, India

28 June, 2026

Hindu woman blackmailed into a relationship, her photographs obscenely morphed, and issued death threats by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

In Faridabad, Haryana, a 21-year-old Hindu woman was befriended, had her photographs secretly taken, obscenely morphed, and was blackmailed by a Muslim man who posed as a Hindu. The accused was identified as Aashu Khan, who concealed his identity by using the Hindu name "Sonu". He also blackmailed and threatened the victim and pressured her into entering a relationship with him. The incident came to light when the victim's mother approached the local police station to file a complaint against the accused. According to the victim's mother, Aashu Khan had first befriended her minor son while posing as "Sonu" and, through this deception, gained entry into their Hindu family home. During his visits, he befriended the victim, who was the sister of the minor Hindu boy. Since he had concealed his true identity and introduced himself as "Sonu", the victim believed that he was a Hindu. Following this, the two began communicating with each other through social media. Over time, the accused secretly took photographs of the victim, morphed them into obscene images, and began blackmailing her with them. He repeatedly pressured her to enter into a romantic relationship with him and even interfered with her arranged marriage. As the harassment continued, the victim became deeply frightened and distressed and lived in constant fear. According to the victim's mother, the accused also visited their home during Hindu pujas while continuing to pose as a Hindu. She further stated that he threatened to kill the victim, her family, and even himself if she refused to be in a relationship with him. Despite the victim's elder brother confronting the accused on several occasions, the harassment continued unabated. Thereafter, the accused created an objectionable artificial intelligence-generated video featuring the victim and circulated it on social media. The victim's mother also contacted the accused's parents by telephone to complain about their son's actions. However, instead of addressing the matter, they blamed the Hindu woman herself and stated that they had no relationship with Aashu Khan and that the family was free to take any legal action against him. Following this, the victim's mother formally lodged a complaint at the local police station and demanded strict action against the accused. Hindu activists also reached the police station in support of the victim's family, demanded stringent action against the accused, and stated that such incidents would not be tolerated in the city or the state.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The 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 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. In this case, the Hindu woman was deceived by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. After gaining her trust through this deception, he secretly took her photographs, obscenely morphed them, and blackmailed her while pressuring her to enter into a relationship with him. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu itself demonstrates a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true identity, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman's trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the woman based on her religious background. Additionally, by concealing his identity and presenting himself as a Hindu, the accused was able to gain the victim's confidence and access to her family, thereby legitimising his presence in the eyes of the victim and her family. This constituted a direct violation of her right to make informed decisions regarding whom she chose to associate with and placed her in a position where she was deceived into interacting with the accused under false pretences. Thus, the perpetrator's deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscores the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment is not merely a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware that the victim, being Hindu, would likely have refused to interact with him had she known his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly points to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflects a larger pattern in which Hindu women are specifically singled out using false identities by Muslim men, often followed by coercion, blackmail, intimidation, or other forms of exploitation. Such targeted victimisation based on religion not only demonstrates a fundamental disregard for Hinduism but also exposes a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. The well-calculated and premeditated intent behind this crime is starkly evident from the perpetrator's initial actions. The accused did not simply happen upon the victim; instead, he deliberately targeted and lured the victim's minor brother into a friendship while posing as a Hindu. By exploiting the innocence of a child, he systematically gained entry into the family’s home, using this deception as a gateway to establish contact with the victim. This degree of calculation demonstrates a deliberate strategy to infiltrate a specific Hindu household and target the woman within it based entirely on her religious identity. It was not merely an exploitation of individual trust, but a coordinated manipulation of an entire family, including a minor, proving that this was a highly organised, premeditated assault rather than an isolated, random occurrence. The subsequent acts of blackmail and coercion further underscore the deeply predatory and religiously targeted nature of this offence. After manufacturing a false identity rooted in the victim's own faith to gain her trust, the accused subjected her to a campaign of severe psychological torment, morphing her photographs into obscene images to force her into a romantic relationship. When viewed alongside his initial deception, these acts of violation and blackmail reveal a profound hostility toward her identity as a Hindu woman. The perpetrator did not merely exploit a vulnerability; he systematically targeted, harassed, and blackmailed her precisely because of who she was. This ordeal represents a clear case of religiously driven harassment, where the victim's faith was the core catalyst for the perpetrator's hostility. This pattern of targeted malice is equally pronounced in the violent threats directed at the victim and her family. The psychological warfare escalated beyond blackmail into explicit threats of violence, targeting not only the young woman but also her loved ones. By threatening to kill the victim, her family, and himself, the perpetrator sought to completely break the family's resolve and enforce total submission. Subjecting an entire household to such terror because they attempted to protect their daughter from a predatory deception further demonstrates that the hostility was directed at the collective unit. The expansion of these threats to the family aligns seamlessly with the initial premeditated infiltration, reinforcing that the entire campaign was driven by a deep-seated religious animus. Another point that merits highlighting is that the accused also threatened to harm himself if the victim refused to enter into a relationship with him. When an individual uses threats of self-harm to coerce another person into a relationship, it is not an expression of genuine despair or vulnerability but a calculated means of exerting psychological control. By using his own life as leverage, the accused sought to exploit the victim's empathy and shift the burden of his well-being onto her shoulders. This tactic created intense emotional pressure, deliberately instilling feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety in the victim in an attempt to compel her compliance. Rather than reflecting affection or emotional attachment, such conduct demonstrates a manipulative and coercive mindset that weaponises the victim's compassion against her, undermines her autonomy, and treats her personal boundaries as obstacles to be overcome through intimidation and emotional blackmail. Furthermore, the creation and deliberate circulation of an objectionable, AI-generated video on social media highlights a malicious desire to inflict maximum public humiliation. By weaponising technology to make the non-consensual imagery viral, the perpetrator aimed to strip the victim of her dignity, destroy her standing within her community, and sabotage her arranged marriage. This was a calculated attempt to completely annihilate the social identity and dignity of a Hindu woman. The sheer depth of hostility required to publicly defile someone's reputation in this manner elevates the act from personal grievance to a definitive hate crime designed to harass and demean the Hindu victim. Given that this case clearly meets the established criteria of targeted, religiously motivated hostility, premeditated deception, and identity-based violence, it has been formally documented. Consequently, this incident is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker to ensure it is accurately recorded and recognised. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred rather than when it was reported in the media. However, in the present case, media reports did not specify the exact date on which the crime took place. Accordingly, the date on which the incident came to light through media reports, 29 June 2026, has been selected as the indicative incident date. This date is being used solely for documentation purposes and should not be interpreted as the confirmed date of the occurrence of the crime.