Hindu woman befriended by Muslim man faking Hindu identity, harassed and pressured for marriage

Case ID : 30a9ae4 | Location : Palghar, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 26 July, 2023

Case ID : 30a9ae4

Palghar, Maharashtra, India

26 July, 2023

Hindu woman befriended by Muslim man faking Hindu identity, harassed and pressured for marriage

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

A Hindu college student, Pari Bari, from Nallasopara, Maharashtra, was targeted by a Muslim man who concealed his religious identity by introducing himself as "Shivansh", a Hindu name, to befriend her. After gaining her trust through this deception, he subjected her to nearly three years of relentless stalking, harassment, attempted abduction, intimidation, death threats, and repeated pressure to marry him. In a video statement, the victim stated that the accused repeatedly intercepted her while she was returning home from college, attempted to abduct her on two occasions, threatened to kill her parents, and held a knife to her brother while demanding that she marry him. She also stated that the accused created fake social media accounts under the name "Shivansh" to monitor her activities, impersonate her friends, and interfere with her personal life, leaving her and her family living in constant fear for their safety. She said these actions formed part of a sustained pattern of stalking and psychological harassment. According to the victim, the harassment began approximately three years ago and steadily escalated despite repeated complaints to the authorities. She stated that the accused frequently confronted her in public, questioned her personal relationships, and continued to intimidate both her and her family. She said that her father, who suffers from asthma, was also threatened, while her family members were repeatedly subjected to intimidation. In her video appeal, the student criticised the local police's response, stating that she had filed multiple FIRs over the past three years but had not received adequate protection. She said that the accused was detained by police but released shortly afterwards without any lasting legal restraint, leaving her fearful that the harassment would continue. Expressing concern for her life, the student appealed for immediate intervention from higher authorities and stated that if any harm were to come to her because of the Muslim stalker's actions, responsibility would lie with those who failed to provide adequate protection despite her repeated complaints.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes, with the subcategory selected as: Man pretends to be Hindu. 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 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 religious dimension of this case becomes evident from the fact that the accused deliberately concealed his Muslim identity and presented himself as a Hindu to gain the victim's trust. Had religion been irrelevant to the offence, there would have been no reason for him to adopt a Hindu identity. The deception worked because the accused understood that a shared religious identity would make the Hindu victim more likely to trust him and lower her guard. The false identity was therefore not incidental but the very means through which he gained access to the victim. The accused did not merely use a fake name. He specifically assumed a Hindu identity to befriend and later harass a Hindu woman. This demonstrates that he recognised the significance of the victim's religious identity and consciously manipulated it to his advantage. Instead of respecting her right to make an informed choice about whom she wished to associate with, he circumvented that choice through religious deception. In effect, Hindu identity became a disguise that he adopted to gain the victim's confidence before subjecting her to prolonged stalking, intimidation, attempted abduction, death threats, and repeated pressure to marry him. This incident also fits into a much broader pattern documented by the Hinduphobia Tracker. The Tracker has documented 840 cases in which perpetrators concealed or misrepresented their religious identity by posing as Hindus to gain the trust of Hindu victims. In 832 of these cases, the perpetrators were Muslims. These figures demonstrate that the use of a false Hindu identity to approach and target Hindu victims is not an isolated occurrence but a recurring modus operandi. The present case follows the same pattern of religious deception and sustained harassment. For these reasons, the victim's Hindu identity cannot be viewed as incidental to the offence. The accused's ability to approach, harass, and intimidate her depended upon concealing his own religious identity and exploiting the trust associated with a shared Hindu identity. This is why the incident has been documented under the Predatory Proselytisation category in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: Media reported this incident on July 27, 2026. The exact date on which the accused first came into contact with the Hindu victim was not specified in the available sources. However, as per the victim's own account, she was being harassed by the perpetrator for the last three years. Since no exact date was mentioned, only the approximate year the victim’s ordeal began could be derived. As the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began, an indicative incident date was determined by aligning this three-year timeline with the publication date. Accordingly, July 27, 2023 has been selected for documentation purposes. The exact date of the first incident has not been publicly disclosed by the victim; therefore, the incident date has been recorded as 27 July 2023, based on the victim's statement that harassment had been ongoing for three years and on the case being publicly reported on 27 July 2026. This date is an approximate reference used solely for record-keeping and timeline consistency until a more precise incident date becomes publicly available.