Hindu woman raped on pretext of marriage by Muslim man posing as Hindu; accused gained her trust by promising to convert to Hinduism

Case ID : 30a9ab8 | Location : Haldwani, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 30 July, 2026

Case ID : 30a9ab8

Haldwani, Uttarakhand, India

30 July, 2026

Hindu woman raped on pretext of marriage by Muslim man posing as Hindu; accused gained her trust by promising to convert to Hinduism

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Haldwani, Uttarakhand, a Hindu woman was subjected to prolonged sexual exploitation by a Muslim man, Shadab alias Shahbaz, based on the false pretext of marriage. The accused concealed his identity and established a relationship with her by assuring her that he would convert to Hinduism and marry her. The Hindu woman, a resident of Shaktifarm in Udham Singh Nagar district, was living in rented accommodation in Haldwani and working at a mobile shop. The accused, a resident of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, worked at the same mobile shop, where the two came into contact. After the victim discovered his true identity, the accused regained her trust by promising to convert to Hinduism and marry her. Relying on this assurance, he sexually exploited her on multiple occasions before later refusing to marry her. He also deleted chats, photographs, and videos from her mobile phone in an attempt to destroy digital evidence connected to the case. Subsequently, based on the victim's complaint, Haldwani Kotwali Police registered an FIR and arrested Shadab alias Shahbaz. He was produced before the court and remanded to judicial custody. According to SP City Manoj Katyal, the victim's mobile phone is being sent for forensic examination to recover the deleted chats, photographs, and videos so that the digital evidence can be included in the investigation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory for this case 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary category for this case is: 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 is a crime, 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. The victim's ordeal describes a pattern in which emotional trust and the promise of marriage and conversion to Hinduism were used by the accused to obtain repeated sexual access over an extended period. Where a relationship is cultivated through sustained deception for sexual exploitation, the apparent consent to the relationship is called into question because it is obtained through false inducement rather than informed and voluntary choice. This places the conduct within the framework of grooming and sexual exploitation rather than an ordinary consensual relationship. In this case, the victim was lured into a relationship by the accused, who concealed his identity. 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 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. By withholding this information and making assurances regarding religious conversion and marriage, the accused manipulated the victim into continuing the relationship under false pretences. Such deception, where a person's religious identity is deliberately concealed to overcome the victim's likely religious objections, targets the victim's religious identity and autonomy. Furthermore, when a man falsely promises to change his religion to marry a woman just to gain her trust and intimacy, it is a deliberate act of deception and abuse. Using the promise of conversion lowers her defences and makes her feel secure, but breaking that promise after exploiting her reveals that the consent was built on a lie. When this is followed by threats, violence, or attempts to destroy evidence, it clearly shows a pattern of manipulation, abuse of trust, and calculated exploitation rather than a simple relationship conflict. The religious element arises from the fact that the accused promised to adopt Hinduism to secure her trust. The assurance of religious conversion was not incidental but was intertwined with the promise of marriage that induced her to continue the relationship. When religion is used as a means of gaining the confidence of a Hindu woman for sexual exploitation, it presents significance beyond a purely personal dispute. The promise of religious conversion therefore functioned as a tool of deception rather than a genuine expression of faith, making the victim's religious identity central to the course of conduct. Taken together, the concealment of the accused's religious identity, the promise to convert to Hinduism and marry the victim, the repeated sexual exploitation, the subsequent threats, and the deletion of digital evidence form a consistent pattern of deception and abuse rather than an isolated relationship dispute. The religious aspect was not incidental; it was used as a means of gaining the confidence of a Hindu woman and overcoming her likely religious reservations in order to facilitate the exploitation. The victim's Hindu identity was therefore central to the manner in which the offences were carried out. Accordingly, this case possesses a clear religious dimension alongside the sexual offences and was thus added to the tracker. Disclaimer: The exact date on which the Hindu woman's ordeal began could not be ascertained from the available sources. The tracker records the date on which the incident occurred rather than the date on which it was reported or published. Since the precise date of the commencement of the offences is unavailable, 31 July 2026, the date on which the case entered the public domain through media reporting, has been used as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.