Multiple Hindu women religiously profiled and sexually exploited by Muslim gym trainer in Davanagere, Karnataka

Case ID : 30a960a | Location : Davanagere, Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 9 July, 2026

Case ID : 30a960a

Davanagere, Karnataka, India

9 July, 2026

Multiple Hindu women religiously profiled and sexually exploited by Muslim gym trainer in Davanagere, Karnataka

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

In the Saraswati Nagar of Davanagere district, Karnataka, multiple Hindu women were targeted and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Mohammed Ismail, the owner and trainer of Power Fitness Gym. According to reports, the accused, Ismail, developed personal relationships with several Hindu women, including women from prominent families and professional backgrounds such as professors, doctors, engineers and government officials. The accused specifically targeted Hindu women who attended his fitness centre and subsequently sexually exploited them. He installed secret cameras in the gym's dressing rooms to capture private videos and photographs of the women without their knowledge. The Hindu victims were subsequently blackmailed, with threats that the intimate recordings would be made public unless they complied with his demands and paid money. It was revealed that the accused targeted more than ten Hindu women, and one woman from a reputed family attempted suicide after fearing that her private videos would be leaked. Hindu organisations, including Shri Ram Sena and Hindu Jagran Vedike, staged protests against the gym, locked its premises, and described the incident as a targeted operation against Hindu women. BJP Davanagere district president Rajasekhar N. Nagappa also demanded strict legal action against Ismail and urged leaders of the Muslim community to ostracise him, stating that his actions had the potential to disturb social harmony. Hindu organisations further stated that CCTV footage and some images connected to the incident had surfaced, intensifying public outrage and prompting demands for stringent action against the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - 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’ 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 primary category selected here is - Attack not resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime under this category. This case stands as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime because the Muslim perpetrator sexually harassed and selectively targeted only Hindu women who visited his gym, making the religious motivation of the crime extremely clear. Mohammed Ismail developed relationships with more than 10 Hindu women attending his gym, sexually exploited them, secretly recorded their private moments using hidden cameras, and subsequently blackmailed them by threatening to circulate the recordings. This deliberate selection exposes a religious bias, where the assault weaponises religion to inflict maximum pain on the Hindu victims and the entire Hindu community. Hindu women endured not just sexual violation, but a calculated strike at their identity. When a perpetrator selectively targets women of a particular faith, in this case Hindus, it showcases not just a random occurrence of women being targeted or coincidentally Hindu, but a pattern in which the perpetrator religiously profiles and targets women from the Hindu community to sexually harass and humiliate them. All this stems from religious animosity against the victim's religion. This profiling reveals a predator's playbook rooted in religious prejudice, where Hindu women became symbols to degrade, shattering their sense of safety in everyday spaces like fitness centres. In such instances, sexual harassment and blackmail served not just for gratification, but to assert religious dominance and humiliate the victim for their Hindu faith, making it a clear case of a religiously motivated hate crime. The exploitation and blackmail carried a deeper malice, designed to strip Hindu women of dignity and remind them of their 'otherness' in their own community spaces. Perpetrators like Ismail thrive on this power imbalance, using physical violence as a tool to enforce religious superiority, leaving scars that linger far beyond the gym and embedding fear into the women's daily lives. The Hindu victims were sexually exploited and secretly filmed because the Muslim perpetrator viewed them as suitable targets on account of their faith, stripping them of their individuality within his prejudice-driven worldview Religiously motivated sexual harassment or assault incidents targeting Hindu women due to their religious identity showcase the deep-seated religious animosity of the perpetrator and his malicious intent to humiliate Hindu women for their faith. By and large, when a community's women face humiliation and targeting for sexual violence, it brings shame to the entire community, and this was done to make the entire Hindu community feel outraged and hurt. Female members sexually harassed by a Muslim perpetrator endure collective trauma, as attacks on women symbolise assaults on community honour and cultural pride. Such acts of targeted sexual violence amount to a clear case of religiously motivated hate crime. The systematic nature of the offences underscores that these actions were not born of random lust but formed part of a deliberate campaign rooted in anti-Hindu animosity aimed at exploiting and humiliating Hindu victims. By framing his predatory conduct around the victims' religious identity and repeatedly targeting members of the same religious community, the Muslim perpetrator demonstrated that religious profiling lay at the heart of his conduct. This sustained pattern of targeting, grooming, sexual exploitation, and secret recording aligns with recognised indicators of a hate crime, confirming religious prejudice as the central motivating factor behind the offences. Notably, this is not the first time such targeted, religiously profiled exploitation of Hindu women and girls has occurred. The Hinduphobia Tracker has previously documented three other instances where Hindu women and girls were specifically targeted for their religious identity for sexual violence and harassment. For example, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, ten Hindu women were religiously profiled, trapped in relationships, and subsequently sexually exploited and blackmailed by a Muslim man named Shahid Sameer Sanadi. In another similar case from Kolhapur, two minor Hindu girls were religiously profiled, targeted, lured into relationships and sexually assaulted by a Muslim man named Sameer Allahbaksh Maner. In another case from Ashok Vihar, Delhi, more than 20 minor Hindu female students were selectively targeted and sexually assaulted by their Muslim tutor, Mohammed Imran. The accused was arrested by the Ashok Vihar police after multiple minor Hindu female students came forward with details of sexual harassment. The police investigation revealed a pattern of behaviour that went unnoticed for months, coming to light only after a Hindu student broke her silence. Given that this case satisfied multiple parameters of an anti-Hindu hate crime, it has been formally added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Media reports stated that more than ten Hindu women were targeted by the accused. However, the exact number of victims has not been officially confirmed. For documentation purposes, the victim count has been recorded as 10, representing the minimum number of victims clearly indicated in the available reports. This figure may be revised if subsequent official investigations or credible reports establish a different number of victims. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the accused began trapping the victims. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media, 10 July 2026.