Anti-Hindu prejudice: Leftist news outlet dismisses religiously driven crimes against Hindu women by non-Hindu men
United States 
11 August, 2026
Case Summary
An anti-Hindu article was published by the leftist Indian-American media outlet 'American Kahani'. It sought to dismiss religiously motivated crimes targeting Hindu women by non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, by portraying them as false and framing the issue solely as one of the Indian government's intrusion into the private relationships of consenting adults. In doing so, it dismissed the documented reality of deceptive relationships, coercive religious conversion, and other forms of exploitation targeting Hindu women. Notably, in India, the targeting of Hindu women in predatory relationships by non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, is commonly referred to in public discourse as "Love Jihad" or "Grooming Jihad". These terms refer to incidents in which Hindu women and minor girls are lured into relationships through deception with the objective of religious conversion or other forms of exploitation. In such cases, non-Hindu men conceal or misrepresent their religious identity by posing as Hindus before entering into relationships or marriages with Hindu women. Once the relationship is established, the women are coerced into converting to another religion, abandoning their Hindu religious practices, or are subjected to sexual exploitation, blackmail, or other forms of coercion. This resulted in the introduction of anti-forced conversion laws in various states of India, including Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In this current case, the article, titled "The Indian State Wants to Regulate Whom You Love, Marry or Live With and Also What You Eat, Say, Sing, Protest or Praise", was authored by V.V.P. Sharma and published on 12 August 2026. In the article, the author claimed that the phrase "Love Jihad" was used to characterise ordinary relationships between people of different religions and turn them into matters of public suspicion. It stated: "Fall in love with the wrong person and the phrase 'love jihad' can be summoned into the conversation, as though two adults deciding whom to marry is a matter of national security... Interfaith relationships have been turned into a political category, and in several states laws ostensibly dealing with unlawful conversion have become part of a much wider public suspicion surrounding such marriages." The article said that anti-conversion laws in several Indian states had resulted in couples being required to justify the legitimacy of their relationships, falsely portraying these laws as an expansion of state control over citizens' private lives. It further linked these laws with other forms of government regulation, including marriage registration, the registration of live-in relationships under Uttarakhand's Uniform Civil Code, restrictions on protests, and broader questions relating to personal liberty. Notably, while falsely presenting anti-conversion laws as instruments of moral policing, the article did not engage with the rationale advanced by state governments for enacting such legislation. These laws were introduced on the stated grounds of addressing numerous cases of forced religious conversion brought about through fraud, coercion, undue influence, or misrepresentation. Instead of examining this distinction or providing examples from the testimonies of victims who had experienced such crimes, the article falsely presented concerns regarding 'Love Jihad' and unlawful religious conversion as synonymous with opposition to relationships between people of different religions themselves.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is: Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is: Anti-Hindu subversion and prejudice. The tertiary category selected is: Anti-Hindu fake news or downplaying. Hate speech is defined as any speech, gesture, conduct, writing, or display that is prejudicial against a specific individual and/or group of people, which is leading to or may lead to violence, prejudicial action or hate against that individual and/or group. Media plays a specific and overarching reach in perpetuating prejudicial attitudes towards a community owing to unfair, untrue coverage and/or misrepresentation/misinterpretation, selective coverage and/or omission of facts of/pertaining to issues affecting a specific religious group. This type of bias can dehumanise the victim group, making it easier for others to justify harmful actions against them, which aligns with the objectives of hate speech laws aimed at preventing such harm. It is often observed that the media takes a prejudicial stand against the Hindu community driven by their need to shield the aggressor community which happens to be a numeric minority, however, is the one perpetrating violence against Hindus. For example, the media is often quick to contextualise religiously motivated crimes against Hindus, omit or misrepresent facts that point towards religiously motivated hate crimes, justify and/or downplay religiously motivated hate crimes or simply present fake news to stereotype Hindus. Such media bias leads to the denial of persecution and is often used to dehumanise Hindus, leading to justification for violence against them. For example, the media covered several fake allegations of Hindus targeting Muslims and forcing them to chant Jai Shree Ram. Most of these cases were proved false and fabricated after police investigation. These fake news reports were subsequently never retracted or clarified. Such fake news led to the justification of violence and dehumanisation of Hindus based on the argument that since Hindus targeted Muslims and forced them to chant Jai Shree Ram, the dehumanisation of Hindus and violence against them was par for the course and merely a retaliation. Such media bias leads to prejudicial portrayal of Hindus and offers a justification for violence against them and therefore, is considered hate speech under this category. This is a clear example of anti-Hindu rhetoric dismissing the experiences and sufferings of Hindu women who have been victims of deception, coercion, forced conversion, and exploitation in relationships with non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men. By portraying "Love Jihad" as a political framing used to generate public suspicion around relationships between people of different religions, and by presenting the state's response to such cases primarily as excessive interference in private relationships, V.V.P. Sharma dismissed the ordeal of Hindu women who have spoken about being deceived, exploited, pressured to convert, or targeted on the basis of their religious identity. As the author of an opinion article published by the Indian-American media outlet 'American Kahani', Sharma's remarks contributed to a narrative that such crimes either did not occur or did not warrant serious public attention. This amounted to the deliberate erasure of an anti-Hindu hate crime and the dismissal of a documented pattern of victimisation affecting Hindu women and girls. "Love Jihad", also known as "Grooming Jihad", is a commonly used term in public discourse referring to religiously motivated crimes targeting Hindu women. In such crimes, Hindu women and minor Hindu girls are profiled on the basis of their religious identity and subsequently lured into relationships or marriages by non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men. In several documented cases, non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, concealed their religious identity and presented themselves as Hindus by adopting Hindu names, using forged or misleading documents, wearing Hindu religious symbols, and participating in Hindu festivals and traditions in order to gain the trust of the victims. These crimes are not isolated incidents but reflect a recurring pattern in which Hindu women are specifically targeted because of their religious identity. The religious profiling of victims and the targeting of a particular community transformed such offences from ordinary crimes into acts motivated by hostility towards the Hindu community. However, it is important to note that Hinduphobia Tracker does not document such crimes under the terms "Love Jihad" or "Grooming Jihad". Instead, such cases are recorded under the category "Crimes against women in relationships or other sexual crimes." Sharma's portrayal of "Love Jihad" as an issue involving the state's interference in the private relationships of consenting adults ignored the central question raised by such cases: whether genuine and informed consent existed in the first place. In numerous documented cases, Hindu women entered relationships believing they were involved with Hindu men, only to later discover that the non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, had concealed their religious identity, adopted Hindu names, or otherwise misrepresented their identity and intentions. A relationship entered into on the basis of a concealed identity or deliberate deception cannot be equated with one entered into through full and informed consent. Personal autonomy and dignity require transparency, honesty, and knowledge of material facts before an individual can make a genuinely informed decision. In other documented cases, although the non-Hindu man's religious identity was known from the outset, the Hindu woman was not informed that conversion to another faith, most commonly Islam, would later be expected or demanded as a condition of continuing the relationship or marriage. Women were led to believe that they were entering genuine relationships in which their own religious identity and practices would be respected, only to later face pressure or coercion to convert, abandon Hindu practices, consume beef, cease worshipping Hindu deities, and adopt non-Hindu religious practices and customs. Where conversion was demanded only after the relationship had already been established, the woman's consent to the relationship could not retrospectively be treated as consent to religious conversion or to the abandonment of her own faith. The subsequent introduction of such demands fundamentally altered the nature of the relationship and, where accompanied by coercion or pressure, undermined the woman's ability to make a free and informed decision. These documented cases demonstrate that the central issue is not the state's interference in the private lives of consenting adults, as portrayed by Sharma, but whether the relationships in question were entered into and continued under conditions of genuine consent. Where Hindu women were lured into relationships through false identities or misleading representations, their consent was obtained without knowledge of material facts. Where women subsequently faced pressure or coercion to convert after the relationship had already been established, the issue was likewise not simply one of two consenting adults exercising personal liberty. The deception, concealment, coercion, and manipulation employed by non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, fundamentally compromised the autonomy that Sharma's argument treated as the defining feature of these relationships. By presenting anti-conversion laws addressing "Love Jihad" primarily as instruments of state intrusion into the private lives of consenting adults, Sharma overlooked the reason why such relationships came under public and legal scrutiny in the first place. These laws were introduced on the stated grounds of addressing religious conversions brought about through fraud, coercion, undue influence, or misrepresentation. Their purpose was not to prohibit relationships between people of different religions merely because they were interfaith relationships, but to address situations in which an individual's consent to conversion had been compromised through deception or coercion. By reducing the issue to one of state interference in private relationships, the article failed to distinguish between a genuinely voluntary relationship and one in which consent had been undermined through concealed identity, false representations, or subsequent pressure to convert. Contrary to Sharma's portrayal that such cases concerned the state's interference in the private choices of consenting adults, Hinduphobia Tracker documented 1,347 such cases between 1 January 2023 and 13 August 2026 in which Hindu women were lured into relationships through deception, fabricated identities, or false promises and subsequently faced pressure to convert to Islam, and were subjected to sexual exploitation by non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men. In 847 of these cases, non-Hindu men, mostly Muslim men, pretended to be Hindus in order to enter into relationships with Hindu women. Victims were, in many cases, pressured to consume beef, cease worshipping Hindu deities, perform namaz, wear a burqa, or otherwise abandon their Hindu religious practices. These documented cases demonstrate that the central concern is not simply whom consenting adults choose to love or marry, but whether the women involved were provided with the information necessary to make a genuinely informed decision and whether their continued participation in the relationship remained voluntary and free from deception or coercion. Some examples of such cases documented by the Hinduphobia Tracker include the following. A Hindu woman from Chakrata in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man who concealed his religious identity behind fake Hindu names and social media profiles. The perpetrator operated under the names "Aman Tomar" and "Aman Sharma" while living in the area as a mechanic. Over time, he gained the Hindu woman's trust, drew her into a relationship, and pressured her to convert to Islam. In Ulhasnagar in Maharashtra's Thane district, a Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship and marriage by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. The accused, Imran Sheikh, introduced himself to the victim as a Hindu man named "Vijay Verma". Following the marriage, the woman was forced to convert, perform Islamic religious practices, and consume beef against her wishes. In another case from Basti, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and sexually exploited by a Muslim politician named Ajfarul Haq, who was associated with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The accused deceived the victim by wearing a kalava and presenting himself as a Hindu man named Prince. He also subjected the woman to physical abuse, and reports also revealed that he had similarly targeted hundreds of Hindu women for sexual exploitation and prostitution. In a similar incident from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman filed a complaint against a Muslim man named Shahrukh, who introduced himself as Yogendra Wadia and posed as a Hindu in order to gain her trust. After his true identity was revealed, he pressured her to convert to Islam and physically assaulted her when she refused to convert. Taken together, the documented cases and recurring patterns outlined above demonstrate that the issue commonly referred to as "Love Jihad" extends far beyond the portrayal advanced by V.V.P. Sharma of state interference in the private relationships of consenting adults. By reducing the issue to one of state intrusion, Sharma overlooked documented cases involving deception, concealment of identity, coercion, and pressure to convert, thereby dismissing the experiences of Hindu women targeted in such crimes. On this basis, this case is being documented in the Hate Crime Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
