Hindu sisters deceived and raped by Muslim man posing as Hindu tantrik in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30a989c | Location : Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 21 July, 2026

Case ID : 30a989c

Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India

21 July, 2026

Hindu sisters deceived and raped by Muslim man posing as Hindu tantrik in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Case Summary

In Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Hindu sisters were deceived and raped by a Muslim man named Mahfooz, son of Abubakar and a resident of Gahni Khurd, who posed as a Hindu tantrik. According to the police complaint, Mahfooz gained the trust of the victims' family by presenting himself as a Hindu spiritual healer. Exploiting their faith, he used the pretext of performing tantra-mantra, witchcraft and exorcism rituals to target the family's three daughters. He threatened them with death through black magic if they resisted or disclosed the abuse. The incident came to light after Mahfooz made the victims' parents sit outside their house under the pretext of performing an exorcism and attempted to rape the third sister inside the house. When she raised an alarm, family members intervened, exposing the abuse. During the subsequent investigation, the victim's two sisters disclosed that Mahfooz had repeatedly raped them over a period of four to five years while keeping them under constant fear through threats of black magic and tantric practices. Based on the complaint lodged by the third sister, the Phulpur police registered a case against Mahfooz on 22 July 2026. Acting under the directions of Senior Superintendent of Police Dr Anil Kumar, the police arrested him later that night. A case was registered under the relevant legal provisions, including the POCSO Act, and he was produced before the court for further legal proceedings.

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. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. 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. This case was a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime as Hindu sisters were religiously profiled, lured under the guise of indigenous spiritual and occult practices, and sexually exploited and brutalised by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu tantrik. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a tantrik and performing fake exorcisms and tantra-mantra demonstrated a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victims' religious traditions. By hiding his true Muslim identity and exploiting sacred spiritual practices inherent to Hindu beliefs, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu family's trust and targeted them under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the women based on their religious background. Thus, the perpetrator's deliberate decision to hide his religious identity and weaponise spiritual and occult practices strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. The accused knew that the victims, being Hindu, would likely refuse his presence and advances if they knew his real religious background, and he circumvented this by masquerading as a Hindu tantrik, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically singled out using false identities or guises by Muslim men, often with coercion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism and exposed deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, through the deliberate deception of a fake spiritual identity, the Hindu women were physically and sexually exploited over a period of four to five years by the Muslim perpetrator. This was not a random act of sexual exploitation; it was a targeted assault driven by religious bias, aimed at singling out and violating Hindu sisters because of their religious identity. Such acts of exploitation by manipulation and religious profiling clearly underlined the religiously motivated nature of this crime. It was also revealed that Mahfooz targeted multiple Hindu sisters within the family over several years, using the fear of black magic and exorcism to commit repeated sexual violence. This showcased a clear pattern in which Hindu women were targeted and seen as vulnerable objects by the Muslim perpetrator, who deceived them and exploited them sexually under religious pretexts, essentially dehumanising Hindu women. Such systematic religious profiling, selecting victims exclusively based on their Hindu identity for deception and violation, established this as a textbook anti-Hindu hate crime, where the victims' faith and spiritual beliefs were the deliberate trigger for their subjugation. Such targeting and hatred for Hindu girls resulted from doctrinal animosity against non-Muslims ingrained in Islamic theology, which preaches intolerance and dehumanisation of non-Muslims, including Hindus. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when a crime occurs or when the victim's ordeal begins, rather than when the media reports it. However, in this case, the abuse spanned approximately four to five years prior to the police arrest on 22 July 2026. Hence, based on this information, an indicative date of 22 July 2026 is selected as the indicative incident date based on the police action and registration of the complaint for documentation purposes only.