Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu; raped, pressured to convert and adopt Islamic principles; forced to accept son's circumcision
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
2 February, 2024
Case Summary
In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited, and pressured to convert to Islam on the pretext of marriage by a Muslim man who concealed his identity by posing as a Hindu. According to the complaint, she was pressured to convert to Islam, wear a burqa, and was forced to agree to the circumcision of her son. The victim, a resident of Indore and a professional singer, stated that she first met the accused in February 2024 during an event in Siliguri. According to the complaint, the accused introduced himself as "Rahul", and the two developed a friendship. She stated that in August 2024, the accused lured her to his room on the pretext of a conversation, where he had physical relations with her under the promise of marriage. When she protested, the accused applied vermilion to her forehead and introduced himself as her husband. He then sexually assaulted her, repeatedly promising to marry her. Later, when the woman was pregnant, she learnt that the accused was Muslim. She also learnt that the accused had relationships with other women. As per the victim, when she raised the issue of marriage, the accused threatened and forced her to convert to Islam to marry him. She stated that he further insisted that she wear a burqa and told her that, if a son was born, the child would have to undergo circumcision in accordance with Islamic customs. According to the complaint, when the woman protested, the accused held her hostage for several days and repeatedly assaulted her. In October 2025, she escaped and went to her friend's house in Delhi, where she gave birth to a child. Subsequently, in March 2026, she moved to her mother's house in Indore. When the accused learnt that the victim had returned to Indore, he then came to her mother's residence and pressured her to live with him. She further stated that the accused claimed the child as his own and, when she opposed him, he assaulted her and threatened both her and her mother with death. Following these events, the victim approached Ban Ganga Police Station with the assistance of her friend and other acquaintances and lodged a complaint. Based on her statement, the police registered a case against Mohammad Rahul, son of Abdul Sheikh, under provisions relating to rape, deception on the promise of marriage, criminal intimidation, and pressure for religious conversion. An investigation was initiated and remained ongoing at the time of reporting.
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" and "Forced circumcision". 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 to his 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 "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 revealed a deliberate pattern of religious deception, sexual exploitation, coercive conversion, and violence directed at a Hindu woman to replace her Hindu identity with Islamic practices. The victim was not targeted merely as a woman in a relationship but as a Hindu woman whose religious identity became the focus of sustained coercion. At the outset, the accused concealed his Muslim identity by presenting himself as a Hindu, thereby overcoming the victim's religious boundaries and securing her trust through deliberate deception. This deception was not incidental; it formed the foundation on which subsequent exploitation and religious coercion were built. By concealing his true identity until the victim was placed in a vulnerable position, the accused ensured that the religious demands that followed became significantly more difficult to resist. Thereafter, the accused's conduct revealed the true architecture of his intent. The relationship was used as a vehicle to compel the victim to abandon her Hindu faith and adopt Islam. The pressure did not stop at conversion alone. The victim was forced to wear a burqa and to agree to the circumcision of her son. These demands were not merely personal or cultural preferences. They were deliberate attempts to erase the victim's Hindu identity and replace it with Islamic practices, while ensuring that the same religious identity was imposed upon the next generation. Such acts subjected the victim to sustained mental trauma and were designed to make opposition increasingly difficult by normalising religious conformity. The religious motivation became even more evident when the accused resorted to intimidation after the victim refused to comply. He threatened both the victim and her mother with dire consequences, demonstrating that coercion replaced persuasion when she chose to retain her Hindu identity. Such conduct directly infringed upon a Hindu woman's freedom to profess and practise her own religion. The violence and threats were not merely acts of abuse; they were triggered by the victim's refusal to abandon her faith and conform to the accused's religious demands, revealing the underlying religious intolerance behind the offence. Taken together, the accused's actions demonstrated that his objective throughout the relationship had not been companionship but the religious subjugation of a Hindu woman who had been made accessible to him only through the concealment of his own identity. This was not a case where a relationship later encountered religious differences. The victim's Hindu identity was the reason she was targeted, the deception was designed around it, the exploitation was sustained through it, and the threats and violence followed her refusal to surrender it. For these reasons, the case was included in the Hinduphobia Tracker as a religiously motivated hate crime. 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, not 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 the accused in February 2024. Therefore, the date of the incident has been set to 3 February 2024, combining the year the victim first met the accused with the report's publication date. This has been used as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
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
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
