Hindu woman sexually exploited and impregnated by Muslim man posing as Hindu; forced to offer namaz, observe roza and eat cow meat
Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India 
29 July, 2024
Case Summary
In Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited, impregnated, and subjected to religious coercion by a Muslim man who concealed his identity as a Hindu. The accused, identified as Shohrab Sheikh Akhtar, introduced himself as a Hindu man named "Saurabh Singh" alias "Golu" and claimed to be an advocate. He also forced her to recite the kalma and eat cow meat in an attempt to convert her. According to the victim, she was a lady constable and a divorced woman with two children from her previous marriage. She stated that she regularly visited the court in connection with her legal matters, where she met the accused in 2024. He frequently appeared there for one of his own cases. Introducing himself as Saurabh Singh, an advocate from Amarpatan, he gradually developed a friendship with her, which eventually turned into a relationship. The victim stated that she discovered the accused's real identity only after he shared his Instagram account, revealing that the man she knew as Saurabh Singh was in fact Advocate Shohrab Sheikh Akhtar. As per a News18 report, the victim was still willing to marry the accused even after acknowledging his real identity. The accused then started imposing conditions on marriage and demanded that she observe Roza, offer Namaz, and consume beef. Although she expressed that she had no objection to marrying him after learning his religious identity, he avoided marriage while continuing to subject her to religious coercion. She further stated that he assaulted her when she protested, while his wife also threatened her. The victim further stated that the accused and his family denied that he was the father of her unborn child. She demanded that a DNA test be conducted to establish paternity and has sought the immediate arrest of the accused. The victim also revealed that the accused was in a relationship with 2-3 other women too and was duping them the same way. Subsequently, the woman approached the Superintendent of Police's office in Jabalpur along with members of Hindu organisations and submitted a formal complaint seeking legal action against the accused. Hindu organisations staged a protest outside the SP office, describing the incident as a deliberate act of deception and demanding his immediate arrest. The police stated that the matter fell under the jurisdiction of the Civil Lines Police Station and initiated an investigation. Officials said an FIR would be registered based on the complaint and that appropriate legal action would follow only after investigation. At the time of reporting, the accused's mobile phone was switched off, and the investigation was ongoing.
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 selected subcategory is: Man pretends to be Hindu. Under this, the tertiary category selected is: Name changed; Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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 sub-category is forced conversion before marriage. The tertiary categories are: Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices and Forced to eat beef. 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. The other sub-category selected here 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 pressurizing 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. This case was included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because a Hindu woman was deliberately deceived about the religious identity of the man who entered into a relationship with her and was subsequently subjected to sustained religious coercion, sexual exploitation, and pressure to abandon her Hindu identity and conform to Islamic religious practices. The sequence of events revealed a clear pattern. The accused introduced himself as "Saurabh Singh", presenting himself as a Hindu advocate, while concealing that he was in fact Shohrab Sheikh Akhtar, a married Muslim man. 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 religious dimension of the abuse became even more explicit after the relationship progressed. The accused compelled her to observe Roza, offer Namaz, and consume cow meat. These were not ordinary personal demands but practices intrinsically associated with Islam, imposed upon a Hindu woman against her wishes. Cow holds profound religious significance for Hindus as the cow is revered as sacred and regarded as a symbol of life, motherhood, and dharma. Forcing a Hindu to consume cow meat therefore constitutes a direct assault on deeply held religious beliefs and an attempt to erode the victim's Hindu identity. Similarly, compelling the victim to perform Islamic religious practices represented an attempt to replace her existing religious identity with one aligned to the accused's faith. The victim's own statement that she was deceived into the relationship through a false Hindu identity and thereafter pressured into following Islamic practices established that the abuse extended beyond emotional or sexual exploitation. It reflected a process of grooming in which deception, emotional dependence, and repeated religious demands were used together to manipulate and control the victim. The denial of paternity after impregnating the victim further demonstrated that the promise of marriage had served as a tool to maintain control over her rather than reflecting any genuine intention to build a family with her. It is also important to address the fact that the victim stated she remained willing to marry the accused even after discovering that he was a Muslim. This does not diminish the initial deception or negate the religious nature of the offence. By the time she learnt his true identity, she had already entered into a serious relationship with the accused, believed his repeated assurances of marriage, and had conceived a child from that relationship. She was also a divorced woman with two children from her previous marriage. Having already invested emotionally in the relationship and believing that the accused genuinely intended to marry her, she found herself in an extremely vulnerable position. Faced with the prospect of raising another child outside marriage, social stigma, emotional dependence, and the fear of her relationship collapsing after discovering the deception, she continued to hope that the accused would fulfil his promise of marriage. It was under these circumstances, and while under considerable emotional and social pressure, that she continued the relationship and submitted to his demands to observe Roza, offer Namaz, and consume beef. Her willingness to marry him therefore cannot be construed as free and informed acceptance of the deception. Rather, it reflected the constrained choices of a woman whose vulnerability had been created by the accused's deliberate concealment of his identity and false promise of marriage. The victim's later conduct therefore cannot be used to dilute or legitimise the original deception through which the relationship was established. This incident reflects a recurring pattern documented in several such cases where Hindu women are first approached by Muslim men concealing their religious identity, only to face pressure to adopt Islamic beliefs and practices once the relationship has been established. The victim's Hindu identity was not incidental to the abuse but formed the basis upon which deception, religious coercion, and sexual exploitation were carried out. Such acts violate not only the victim's bodily autonomy but also her freedom of conscience and right to practise her Hindu faith without coercion or manipulation. For these reasons, the incident constituted a religiously motivated hate crime against a Hindu woman and warranted its inclusion in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal begins or when the crime first occurs, rather than the date on which the matter is reported in the media. In the present case, the victim stated that she first met the accused in 2024 at the court where both regularly appeared, marking the beginning of the deception and the subsequent chain of events that culminated in sexual exploitation, religious coercion, and forced observance of Islamic practices. Since the exact date of their first meeting is not available in the public domain, 30 July 2024 has been recorded as the indicative incident date by combining the known year in which the ordeal began with the day and month the case was reported in the media (30 July 2026) for documentation purposes. This date has been adopted solely to represent the commencement of the victim's ordeal.
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 
